Restoration of a Steinway M for Andrea Tyree
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20) This shows the last of the stretcher being reglued.
This side, as with the other side of the stretcher, had received a botched attempt
at regluing some time in the past. This made this repair ten times more difficult.
However, the finished product should look nearly invisible if all goes well.
21) The stripped piano is now ready for stain.
22) Another piece of veneer had to be repaired at this place. The veneer here
was so broken up and so much missing that an entirely new piece was fitted into place.
You see the new veneer here covered with masking tape which is used to keep the
fibers of the veneer together until the cutting and gluing is finished.
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23) The new veneer is now in place and ready for stain.
When the staining and filling were done it was impossible to even see that there
was a repair here.
24) This picture shows the piano after it had been stained and sealed. It is
now ready for filler.
25) The owner decided that they preferred to have the maple inlays stand out as much
as possible. I believe that Steinway, originally, colored this veneer and filled it
before cutting it for these inlays of maple. This enabled them to get the maple very
light while the rest of the piano was darker. If we could have redone this piano
without adding stain, that effect would have been preserved. Sadly, the instrument
was so terribly sun bleached that it simply HAD to be stained. So, to get the inlay
light again, I attached straight edges to the cabinet and painstakingly scraped all the
color off the inlay without doing anything to the surrounding mahogany. It was a
slow process and the final result isn't as clean looking as it did originally but the only
way (considering the sun fading we had to deal with) to get this to look as it did from
Steinway would have been to replace the inlay completely in the same manner that Steinway
would have done to begin with. Taping the inlay off before staining wouldn't have
helped either because the color would have wicked under the tape into the inlay
regardless. Still, the final result is spectacular even if it is not totally perfect
to a very critical inspection.
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27a) 
26) Another angle showing this wonderful inlay effect.
27) Rebushing the keys. These ivories are showing a typical problem of
Steinway ivories; they are cracking right down the middle. The problem is so
inclusive of all the ivories that I will be asking the owner to consider recovering the
keys.
27a) On this round of restoration projects in the shop, I am restoring six pianos at
the same time. It is easier for me to maintain the highest quality and at the same
time produce the fastest possible production by lacquering the parts of these pianos in
groups based upon the type of part as opposed to lacquering groups of boards based upon
which piano they came out of. In this "installment" I'm spraying the legs
and pedals. After the lacquer had been layered to a total thickness of .005"
and allowed to dry enough to sand, it was sanded until all the spraying marks and grain
was sanded completely away. Then the boards were cleaned well and another mil of
lacquer was added to flow out the 220 grit sanding marks. The condition of the
surface of these parts after this final top coat of lacquer was such that they will rub
out very quickly since the surfaces are nearly flawless.
27b) 
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27b) The same again but on this "round" I am
spraying music desks, key slips and a few other similarly shaped boards.
28) The sound board of this piano had only one crack. But it was a monster and
it passed in and out of the bridges making shimming very hard. The board had little
or no crown left so it is hoped that this shimming job will help reestablish some crown.
If no crown comes back into the board after this, it is proof that the wood of the
board has, as feared, died. In this picture, the skin is being glued back to the
ribs in the areas where this glue joint has failed. The board has temporary,
artificial crown forced into it by wedges driven under the board.
29) Now the crack has been cleaned out and shaped so as to take a perfectly fitted
shim. Actually, although it is only one crack it took three separate pieces of wood
to fill it due to interference from the bridges. The shim is being clamped into
place now. It was such a wide crack that the shim didn't want to stay put at all by
itself so many clamps were used all along its length to make sure it stayed put at every
point. Much care has to be taken when using this many clamps on a board in this
position. None of the clamps were tightened more than was necessary to keep the bit
of shim it was responsible for nicely in place.
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30) The plate has been refinished.
31) By customer request, this spot on the plate was masked off and the original
finish retained. One of the owner's of Steinway signed the plate at this point and
it was requested that the original signature be preserved.
32) After a vigorous attempt at saving this sound board by drying and shimming, no
crown was reestablished in the board. It was decided that the best path would be to
replace it. Here, you see the original board has been knocked out after having been
carefully indexed.
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33) The bridges are now indexed to the sound board before
they are removed from the other side of the board.
34) The dowels that hold the treble bridge to the sound board must be carefully
drilled out. We're restoring the original bridge so care was taken not to invade the
actual wood of the bridge itself during the drilling.
35) Removing all the old splinters of sound board and hide glue residue by soaking
the rastin with a mixture of water and white vinegar.
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36) The rastin is now absolutely clean and ready for a new
glue joint.
37) The rough cut ribs are fitted to the piano so that they fit the notches in the
rastin absolutely perfectly. The ideal is to have no voids in the joint that have to
be filled in with glue. We want all wood to wood contact everywhere we can get it.
Even Steinway isn't as meticulous about this fitting as I am.
38) Shaping the ribs on the surface that will later glue to the skin of the sound
board. A physically crowned board (the only kind I will make) has the crown of the
board actually shaped right into the ribs. This gives a much better town and
dramatically greater longevity to the sound board.
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39) The ribs are clamped to the old board next to the
original rib they are to duplicate. The profile of the original rib is then
transferred to the new rib. The ribs are then rough cut on the band saw and then
shaped and sanded to perfection.
40) After the ribs have been shaped to match the originals then they are fitted
still further so that they match the depth of the notches in the rastin exactly. The
idea is to have the skin of the board and the ends of the ribs all touching the rastin and
the notches exactly so the glue joint will be very strong.
41) A close up showing the actual crowned shape of the completed ribs. After
the ribs are glued to the skin of the board, the rounding of their undersides (the side
that faces the floor) will be done by hand. In the mean time, the squared off shape
will help get good clamping pressure in the sound board press.
