Restoration of a Steinway X Upright for Richard Davis
61) 
62) 
63) 
61) The bottom end of the treble bridge again; to show the
laminations and the fact that the extension was painted gold at Steinway to hide any
factory existent imperfections.
62) A composite of pictures and scans to show the way in which the
bass bridge is constructed. It is a straight bridge which requires each string to be
a different length (even when two strings are the same note, they must be calculated for
different speaking lengths. My reconstruction will probably remove this particular
"cheat".
63) The bass bridge from underneath. This shows the fact that they did
not take the time to tape off the glue joint of the bridge and then do a proper finishing
job over the entire piece of wood before gluing it to the piano. The bridge is just
finished with the rest of the sound board after everything is glued together. This
is found in just about every piano I've ever seen. A piano never leaves my shop with
its bridges having been treated in so slipshod a manner. The exposed bare wood can
lead to rot, warping, insect infiltration and who knows what else. In addition, the
fact that their sloppy method of slapping finish on the board caused finish to run down
the underside of the bass bridge apron. The drips are so thick, the final result
probably has more weight in finish than it would have had if it had been done right in the
first place.
64) 
65) 
66) 
64) Part way through planing the old mahogany off the top of
the piano. This is a job that must be done by hand. And since the wood of the
back frame is set up with end grains and grain "run outs" that go in random
directions, it is impossible to do this job without some chatter marks in the hardwood
beneath. These will be largely sanded away and the rest filled in when the restored
top board is glued back down with poplar veneer this time instead of mahogany.
65) All the planing is done; the mahogany is off.
66) The planing chatters have been largely sanded out. Later the glue
will fill the last of the voids. The finished restoration will have all the strength
of the original and ten times the beauty.
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68) 
69) 
67) The design of this piano carries many surprises to the
uninitiated. Many things we never see any more and others we see in a totally
different way (or never see at all) are found herein. In this picture and the one to
follow, we will see that the design of this piano's plate created what we now call a
triplex. This means that the string segments between the capo bar which terminates
the string at its upper portion has secondary bars that carry the wire in a way to create
controlled wire segments. These segments are supposed to help reflect any vibratory
energy that "leaks" past the termination (called a capo) and lets the user hear
them directly or, hopefully, reflects such leaks back into the string. As a matter
of fact, I've long been a big fan of the triplex. But recent R & D done in my
shop has proven that the truth of the matter is that very little if any energy leaks out
into the triplex. That, in fact, the triplex helps very little if at all. The
secondary string segment called a "duplex" which is located at the other end of
the string is the one that actually provides added sound to the system if it's made
properly. For instance, Mason & Hamlin has made a duplex design for years which
is very helpful in the overall sound and does work very effectively. On the other
hand, the duplexes designed by Steinway and installed in all Steinway pianos during the
20th century (and still going) is badly considered and does little to help the sound.
This piano comes from an era when the duplex wasn't in use. The expectations
of instrument buyers had been increasing in the expectations of volume produced by the
piano ever since they were invented. At the time this piano was built, the industry
had not yet embraced the use of the duplex with any enthusiasm. It was new and its
helpful qualities had not yet been realized.
68) The first picture showed the triplex of one section of the
plate. This is of the adjacent section. I feel it will be in our best
interests to upgrade this piano to enable it to have a duplex scale to go with this basic
triplex. The results will be considerably enhanced.
69) A long story here. Let me try to keep it simple. This photo
shows the sound board laying in place after it had been removed and the bridges extracted.
Upon inspection of the piano's design and its capabilities, I decided to rework the
way the bass bridge is attached to the sound board. To do this without harming the
power of the bass, the sound board will need to be enlarged a bit at the treble end of the
bass bridge. The wood to be excised is marked off and the bridge is in the photo
having just been used for reference.
70) 
71) 
72) 
70) This shot is of a piece of paper that was cut out with
the purpose of making a pattern for a wood insert that could improve the fit of the plate.
Normal, modern upright pianos of good quality have a system whereby the sound board
is glued to a wide shelf (called a Rastin) all the way around except at the top. At
the top, the Rastin is either an integral part of the pin block or a piece of wood (often
vertically laminated wood in better pianos like this Steinway) which is let into the pin
block. Well, in the case of this piano, they designed the plate with two flanges.
The upper flange is built to carry the weight of the strings as they bass from the
tuning pins into the pin block. The entire assembly of plate, pin block and their
tight fit gives the sound sustain and power. This piano, however, does not have the
usual system for attaching the sound board and its frame of attachment to the pin block.
Instead, the plate is designed for another section of wood to be fitted to a second
iron flange which holds the sound board firmly and helps to improve sustain and power by
holding the sound board (especially the upper treble) tightly. Apparently, after
ordering a number of these plates to be built, the folks at Steinway decided the work of
fitting the Rastin into the second flange was too much work. So they made sure the
frame of the sound board was pulled back and away as far as possible from the plate so
that the instrument could be assembled without fear of the two components here interfering
with each other. The result is that the upper treble portion of the Rastin is very
weak in its support and probably yielded a poor treble from day one. Later on, you
will see what steps I took to correct this lazy man's problem. I had hoped to fit a
wood piece into place to complete the scope of the original design. However, I, too,
found it easier said than done to do such a job and get it right. I found a better
solution with great strength which will be discussed shortly.
71) With the sound board out, I can clean up the Rastin of wood and
glue residue so the new sound board will glue up well. To do this, a solution of
water and white vinegar is soaked into paper towels or rags as available and this packed
onto the old glue joints and permitted to soak.
72) The cleaned up Rastin. It will still require some regluing,
reinforcing, repairing and revamping before it's ready to be used again.
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74) 
75) 
73) Following are four photos of the Rosewood sides of the
piano. It's virtually impossible to get a good bare wood photo that really shows up
the beauty of the wood. These photos are no exception and I thought twice about
including them. However, some info can be gleaned from them and the owner will, no
doubt, enjoy taking a peak at how things are coming on that front.
74) ...
75) ...
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78) 
76) ...
77) This corner is called a gusset. The purpose is to shorten
the length of the rib so that it will last longer and vibrate in a more complex manner.
A huge sound board can be a good thing if it's made right and has a proper
stringing scale associated with it. In the case of this upright, Steinway obviously
felt that the extra sound board in this corner and the one opposite were not helping the
sound. Personally, I don't doubt but that they were right. A larger board
might have served for a warmer and rounder tone with greater volume but it would have been
at the expense of harmonic richness and projection. I digress... The photo is
taken to show the area of the bottom corner gusset which I enlarged so that the bass
bridge can be reconfigured for better tonal properties. Upon examination of the
scale, it is obvious that the piano would have originally had a section at the lowest
plain wire notes that sounded rather lifeless and hard to tune cleanly. The other
problem that is apparent from the charts is that the sound of the piano as it passed from
plain wire notes to wound strings there would have been a very obvious change in timbre.
My rescale will eliminate these difficulties.
78) The gusset opposite the one we've been discussing consisted simply of a
bar of laminated wood which was glued and doweled to the back posts. Unlike the
lower gusset which was filled in with wood. This is a glue-up of new wood being
placed into the corner of the piano to make both gussets equally strong. Before, the
empty triangle of the upper gusset was just filled with useless sound board. It is
costly and time consuming to replace sound board into these types of gussets. Since
I am going out of my way to improve this piano in every way possible, I felt it was more
efficient to make the gusset stronger and leave out the hours of additional work involved
in laying a sound board over that dead corner.
79) 
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81) 
79) The new piece of wood as seen after the epoxy has dried.
80) The same filler for the gusset from behind.
81) A layer of veneer placed over the new gusset wood to match it with the
veneer that lines the inside of the rest of the case.
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84) 
82) A shot of the gusset and veneer from another angle.
83) When you have to glue an oddly shaped piece of wood into an
awkward location, the clamping assembly can take on a Dr. Seuss like appearance...
84) The bottom of the Rastin on this piano was horridly fragile and thin.
Most pianos (even poor quality ones) have thicker glue shelves here. This is
down near the floor where moisture can become a problem in some homes. Rather than
rob vibrating space from the sound board, I reinforced this section of the rastin with the
piece of wood shown in this photo.
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87) 
85) An overall look at where we are so far.
86) While it is possible to remove the entire pin block from an upright
piano and replace it, I have never found the very difficult job of removing the old block
to be worth the extra days of labor when another (very effective) option is available to
us. I make custom jigs for each section of the piano. They start in paper and
then transfer to wood or masonite. Then the shape is cut out and shaping I have come
to know has to be done for a good fit is completed. Then each jig is nailed to the
piano's old pin block and to new Delignit pin block blanks. The router is used to
remove the old wood and to shape an insert into the old pin block that will hold the
tuning pins well. If the pin block had been damaged in some way so that I doubted
its structural integrity, other techniques would be applied. In this piano, this
method will serve us very well.
87) One of the jigs nailed with brads to the old pin block.
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88) More photos showing a section which has been cleaned out,
a blank which has been shaped and the router ready to cut another recess.
89) A routed area of the old block.
90) All the new inserts are literally driven into the accurate cavities.
The plate will now be reinstalled over the pin block and a number of screws
installed to ensure good plate positioning. Then the blanks will be marked for
drilling using the plate as a guide. Finally, the plate and blanks will be removed
(the blanks driven out) and the holes for the tuning pins made in the blanks.
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