Restoration of a Sterling player piano for the Stone family of Plano Texas.
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17) The tops of the bridges were planed down just to the point where the
indentations made by the strings over the years were erased. Doing this it the first
step in cleaning up the string terminations at the bridge. The next step is shown
here. Using an extremely sharp chisel the notches in the bridges are being
redone. This allows me to ensure that the string hits the bridge pin and the wood of
the bridge at the same time. If you look closely at this picture and note the
notches that have not been done yet, you will see that the way the bridge is at that
point, the string would hit the wood of the bridge long before it touches the bridge pin
which will be driven into the holes you see here. If this condition were left in
place, it would cause the strings to speak falsely. A false string sounds by itself
like two strings that are out of tune with each other. You can see if you look
closely at the picture that after the notches have been redone, the terminations are
absolutely perfect.
18) This picture shows the sound board just after it has been pre-wetted for the
bleaching process. The orange color of the wood is the color that most rebuilders
leave on their sound boards. By bleaching the board, we oxidize all of the old
shellac and other contaminants that are in the wood that cause it to go orange. When
the bleaching process is complete, you will have a board that finishes up nearly white
like it did when new.
19) Now the bleach is in place. The bubbles are caused by the chemical
reaction that is oxidizing the contaminants in the wood. As soon as the bleach has
had time to "do its thing" the sound board is moved under a fan that is blowing
on high. This dries the board up as quickly as possible. We don't want this
liquid sitting on the board long enough to do any harm to the glue joints or wood
structure.
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20) This picture was taken in an attempt to help the owner (who lives thousands of
miles away) to get an idea for the final color his piano will be. It is a nice brown
mahogany that swings towards the red end of the spectrum. The main cabinet that you
see here was not stripped chemically like the loose boards were. It was scraped and
then washed with alcohol. The alcohol wash actual allowed me to pick up much of the
original stain. The "dirty" wash was then used on all the other boards of
the cabinet. This created a nice even color throughout the piano that repeats the
original color as exactly as possible. Some of the original stain was left behind
even by the chemical stripper but this step helps to pull everything together.
21) This picture is aimed at the same idea. To help the owner see the color of
the piano. Also, the keyboard is pictured here so that you can get an idea for how
yellow the keys are. A photograph usually makes ivory look whiter than it really is.
This photo is no exception. However, you can still get an idea for the yellow
of the keys. This will, of course, be corrected when the keys are restored.
22) The front portions of the piano's legs (perhaps we can call it the
"toe") was so badly mangled from years of people kicking it and furniture
banging into it, that it was decided to completely reveneer these surfaces. Also,
the bottom corners of these legs are particularly susceptible to damage. Any
material that I would use to build these corners up would only get banged up again in
short order. Therefore, those corners are being slightly reshaped to make them
attractive yet less likely to be damaged.
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23) The new veneer has been glued down and the process of matching it into the rest
of the piano is about to begin. Sadly, a digital camera is not the best tool for
showing repair work of this sort since the level of detail is insufficient and the flash
tends to make it appear that there are color variations or problems where none actually
exist. For instance, a tiny bit of dust on the wood will look like some major
problem in the wood itself with the digital camera.
24) You can see a blob of paste wood filler has been placed on the new portion of
the wood. The first colorations have already been applied to the new veneer.
Now the filler will be packed into the pores and then wiped clean. This will also
effect the color. Finally, small amounts of toner will be used to finish matching
the color.
25) This picture shows the veneer after the filler has been packed into the pores.
Next, it will receive some toners and sealers. Then, if the color is still
not exact, toning lacquers will be used carefully to match the color without hiding the
grain.
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26) The back corner of the lid has been badly damaged. A new section of
molding needed to be hand carved to match and some epoxy was laid in to replace the
missing wood. After this is all set up and the glue had dried, the color will
matched in again.
27) Here, the loose boards are hanging in the spray booth and the lacquer has been
applied until 5 mils of thickness has been applied. The manufacturer of the lacquer
will warrantee it up to five mils of thickness. Anything over that and the lacquer
may check. After the rubbing out process is complete, the lacquer will actually be a
little less than five mils in thickness.
28) The front of the keybed is made of solid poplar. It had been so badly
banged up that it was impractical to try to repair by filling. Also, the look would
not have been even if the repairs had been done in this way. Since it was solid wood
and not veneer, it was possible to simply sand away the front of the keybed until all the
imperfections had been smoothed away. Then the newly cleaned wood was colored in
such a way that it did not look like a piece of new wood. It will simply look like a
section of the piano that matches all the other sections and looks as if it had been well
preserved over the years. The important thing to realize here is that the wood of an
antique piano has a different look once refinished than it did when new. There is a
certain patina that develops over the decades that causes a different look to develop.
This is not to be confused with distressing. It is just that the color of the
wood develops a richness that is not present in brand new wood. It is important
whenever putting new wood into a piano that this rich color is developed into the new wood
if possible. This usually requires many coats of various shades of color until the
final appearance that is sought after comes into the wood.
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29) This picture shows the technique that I use to determine how much thickness I
have developed onto the wood. A piece of tape, whose exact thickness is already
known, is placed on a piece of wood. Each time a coat is placed on the piano an coat
of exactly the same thickness is laid onto the tape. Once the tape reaches a
thickness .005" greater than it had to begin with, I know that I have reached the
desired quantity of lacquer.
30) This shows the sound board and bridges after they are complete. New bridge
pins have been installed. Sadly, this piano's bridges were not capped. They
were made of solid maple with no additional layer at the top to help stabilize the bridge
and keep it from splitting. Because of this, the long bridge did split in a couple
places. This splits were repaired by gluing them up with cyanoacrylate glue.
The rest of the bridges were redrilled so that oversized bridge pins could be used.
This ensures a good tight bridge pin that prevents false beats and other poor tone from
the strings. Again sadly, one small area on the upper treble bridge couldn't take
the pressure of the tighter bridge pins as they were installed. This small area
split slightly, forming small hairline cracks. These cracks didn't pass down too
deeply and the pins themselves remained tight. Therefore, the cracks were filled
with cyanoacrylate, which has the benefit of not only filling tiny cracks like this but it
helps to bind the entire structure together. In a perfect world, it would have been
ideal to have cut these bridges down and recapped them. But they will still give
good service for decades to come now that they have been restored.
31) The cast iron plate before it was reguilded. First the plate is washed and
dried. Then it is thoroughly sanded to ensure the new finish will adhere well to the
surface. Then new layers of guilding lacquer are sprayed on. This gold lacquer
is then sanded with very fine paper and a tack cloth used to get every scrap of dust off
the plate. Then more gold is sprayed in place. Finally, the embossed lettering
is repainted and the serial number replaced.
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32) The plate after reguilding is finished.
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