Restoration of a Steinway M for Andrea Tyree
42) 
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42) Diaphramizing the sound board panel. First a
series of saw kerfs are cut into the edges of the board. They are deepest at the
edge and feather off to nothing as they pass towards the center of the panel. The
marks taper off at about the same place the thinning of the ribs stop on the other side of
the panel. Mostly the board was diaphramized to match the original panel with only
minor alterations based upon my experience with this process.
43) Using the original panel to line up the clamping cauls in the gluing press.
44) A break to work on the bridges. Here, the treble bridge has been scraped,
renotched, reamed and repined with oversized pins. The notches were then finished
but the sides were left as bare, bleached wood to be finished with the rest of the sound
board after gluing.
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45) The sound board is in the press waiting for the glue to
dry.
46) Now the board has been glued together with its ribs. The underside is now
sanded, all glue squeeze out is cleaned up and the ribs are rounded and sanded to match
the original board.
47) Now the treble bridge is being glued to the opposite side of the board with the
use of the sound board press.
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50) 
48) Here the bass bridge is being glued into place.
Because bass bridges have unusual shapes, many shims and extra blocking is needed to
produce a good glue joint.
49) Here, hard wood dowels are being inserted into holes drilled through the ribs
into the treble bridge. Each rib is doweled to the treble bridge in this manner.
50) Gluing the sound board into the piano. Many specially design cauls;
specially designed clamps, and other special fixtures, some of which are made special just
for this piano and will not fit anything else except another Steinway M from the same time
period, are used to accomplish this.
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51) Gluing the spruce quarter round trim which reinforces
the glue joint of the sound board along its long straight side and in the treble where the
joint is critical are being clamped into place. Hot hide glue is used for all of
this process. This is a tricky glue to work with because of its short open time and
the need to slow it down with special chemicals. If the added chemicals are added in
too high a quantity, the strength of the glue is compromised so much experience, testing
and expertise is needed to use this glue. However, this is the tried and true glue
for this job. It can be reversed later when this board wears out without damage to
the rest of the piano, it is very rigid and will reflect sound beautifully, and it is
already known to last centuries if applied correctly. Many more modern glues are
available for this process but I refuse to use any of them because this is the glue that
is KNOWN to work every time and for a very long time.
52) The plate has been put into the piano and mounted to the nose bolts. The
height of the plate is determined using these bolts. Then the pin block is glued
into the piano using the plate to help hold it in perfect alignment until the glue has
dried.
53) The pin block has now had its glue joint reinforced with dowels just as the
original block had. Also, dowels have been set into the piano for the plate to mount
to. These are all at the perfect height to hold the plate where needed for correct
string down bearing onto the bridges. Also, the top of the sound board has received
its finish of lacquer as has the rest of the case.
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54) Stringing the piano.
55) The piano is now restrung.
56) Installing the newly rebushed damper guide rails.
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57) A view of the piano all restrung and with the newly
refelted damper heads in place and regulated.
58) Preparing to restore the action. To do this, the shanks and flanges need
to be replaced since the center pins are coated in a corrosion known as verdigris.
59) Refelting the let off buttons. On a Steinway the let off rail cannot be
removed so the entire action stack must be turned over to work on the let off buttons.
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60) Replacing the cloth rail cover which Steinway uses to
improve contact between the shank flanges and the rail. This cloth helps to keep the
parts from moving after their placement is set.
61) The ebonies on the sharp keys were coming unglued. Here, you see them
being reglued.
62) The freshly restored and resurfaced ebonies.
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63) The pedals on a Steinway have a very unusual arrangement
of leather with felt punching centers as the bumpers the pedals return to when released by
the foot. I apologize for the blurry picture but this is a close up of the original
rotten leathers and the new ones made in shop. A specially made clamping jig is
particularly useful in duplicating the design of these. The leather doesn't
naturally want to form the pillow around the felt centers so it must be "talked into
it" with a clamping jig.
64) The solid brass pedals were glass bead blasted and then polished. All the
other metal parts were badly corroded due to exposure to salt air. These were all
glass bead blasted and then everything was refelted and reassembled into the newly
refinished pedal lyre.
65) A front view of the restored pedal lyre.
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66) A back view of the pedal lyre.
67) Preparing to mount the new Isaac hammers onto the new Renner shanks and flanges.
68) Photo of the finished product. I apologize for some gaps in the photo
records of pianos completed around this time. I and my wife had been hit with a
large number of health problems and we also had a number of other personal problems that
needed sorted out around this time. The detailed record keeping had to be
temporarily sacrificed because there wasn't enough hours in the day to complete it.
Hopefully, we'll be back on track now and further photos of our projects will be posted as
usual.
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69) More finished pictures.
70) The inside of the finished piano.
