Restoration of a Steinway M for Union City High School
Due to disc space restrictions the large copies of photos for
this project are no longer present on the web. If you want to see the full sized
pictures, please email me with your request. A CD which contains all the pictures in
full is available for a small fee.
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1) A picture taken before work began.
2) This shows how the veneer was busted out on the underside of the lid near the
hinges.
3) The outside of the rim has now been stripped.
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4) The stretcher has also been stripped. The device on the key bed was used to
measure the height of the plate before it was removed.
5) The sound board has been thoroughly dried to widen the cracks in the wood.
Now those cracks are being shimmed with fresh spruce.
6) The original pin block has been cut out. The old block is being used to
make a pattern for the new block which will be cut from this double sized pin block
material panel.
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7) The pin block has been carefully fitted to the lip of the plate. Then, to
make sure that every single bit of the lip of the plate touches the block a thin layer of
very tough epoxy is applied to the wood and the block is then pressed into the plate.
The result is a fit to the block which is still largely wood to metal but even the
bits of wood that miss slightly are coated with a layer of epoxy which causes the block to
touch the plate firmly even there.
8) Because this is an ebony finish, I like to use a latex filler which is spread
over the entire surface. After drying, the filler is sanded flush to the wood.
This fills the pores of the wood and also fills all the little dents and scratches
in the wood. Because this piano is used in a school, it has a great deal of damage
to the wood. Also, in the older Steinway ebony grands, the pianos were veneered with
ebony. This makes for a much easier job for finishing because there are no pores to
fill. Also, the ebony is tougher and less susceptible to damage. This piano
was built in the sixties when quality was going out the window at Steinway. The
piano is veneered in mahogany. Even the legs are made of solid mahogany which is
largely why they have such a great deal of very serious damage. If the legs had been
poplar or maple, they wouldn't have disintegrated like they did. It will take a lot
of time, patience and epoxy to rebuild the legs.
9) The rim is also coated in this filler. Also, the sound board has now been
scraped and bleached.
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10) Preparing to drill out the new pin block. I like to use the old block to
set up the drill press. This enables me to duplicate the original drill angle for
the tuning pins.
11) Drilling out the new pin block.
12) Using the paper patterns I made before I cut the old pin block from the piano, I
can now mark the new pin block as to where it needs to be trimmed so that it will fit into
the piano perfectly, leaving the plate in exactly the correct position.
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13) The sound board has been refinished. The bridges have been restored and
are ready to receive new bridge pins.
14) Due to problems with my health and my wife's we were unable to complete the
photo record on this project. The project was completed on schedule but we had to
sacrifice the web documentation because there wasn't sufficient time to do both.
Other similar projects are abundantly documented on this web site. Go to the Current Projects hub to see more.
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