Spent a good part of the day today working on this project.  50ish year old piano made in Cincinnati.  A long road of discovery. 

 

My aim was to be able to get out the "harp" -- the cast iron frame with the strings.  This will, I hope, significantly reduce the weight down from 500-600 pounds and needs to come out anyway for the conversion.

 

So got apart: 

• 90% of the harp
• the lid
• the music stand
• the keyboard
• the keyboard cover
• the strings
• the dampeners

 

Details:

 

A piano has 88 keys, but most of the keys have three strings, most of what was left had 2, and a few lower octave had one string.     The strings need to be at least loosened to get them off the soundboard pegs.  Of course, the tuning pegs are not only close together, but have a square top, making removing by a drill and socket not possible.  At least they were not male Torx that I'd have no way to remove (saw that on some of my research). 

The harp is held in by a bunch of #14 or bigger screws.  most of them are under the strings.   So the strings needed to have the tension removed, then cut.  Of course, the very last screw, the one hardest to get at, would not budge.  Went to AutoZone and got a can of penetrating lube that did no good.  Tried to drill out without success.   Screw removers didn't work, either.   So back another day with a Fein Multitool and hope to be able to get it by cutting out the board below..  One more screw holding the harp down on the opposite end that may be a bolt holding on the leg coming up through.

 

Pulled out 88 dampeners that sat above the strings in the harp.   Necessary before the harp can be removed.

 

Unscrewed the rail on the soundboard from below, but it appears to be glued down, too.  May have to just remove this whole thing and put some plywood in there for the bookcase.   (The plan is to use the top and other misc parts for shelving, where possible)

 

Pulled off the top, music stand, keyboard cover, and a whole bunch more hard to get to screws to remove the keyboard.  The keys are pretty nasty looking so they will probably not be in the final product.

 

Will have to do some touch up and refresh, or maybe strip, the finish on the very nice walnut veneer once further along.

 

Pictures when I'm not so knackered and get the parts unloaded from the van. 

Sounds like loads of fun, seriously. I know I'd enjoy the tear down. What's your plan for the keys replacement? 

It's going to be one unique and, no doubt, beautiful piece. Really looking forward to following your progress. 

Will be interesting to see this as it progresses.  

Looking forward to these pics and your progress Keith.

Speaking of Cincinnati, have they caught those monkeys and determined where they came from?  A very unusual story there

No word on the monkeys, but I have not seen a lot of news the last couple days.   monkeys on the loose

Ken this job sounds so intriguing. Going to be a lot of fun following this. 
Paul

The soundboard ( what the cast iron plate is attached to) is usually screwed and glued to prevent any vibration. The tuning screws will need a special tuning tool to loosen them. Maybe you could cut the wires with a grinder? By the way, sometimes the cast iron soundboard makes a cool conversation piece.

1 hour ago, DRAGON1 said:

The soundboard ( what the cast iron plate is attached to) is usually screwed and glued to prevent any vibration. The tuning screws will need a special tuning tool to loosen them. Maybe you could cut the wires with a grinder? By the way, sometimes the cast iron soundboard makes a cool conversation piece.

I had one tool that, while it had a hex socket, seemed to work OK on the tuning pegs.   They were under a lot of tension so we loosened them all up, worked on removing from the pins on the sound board and ended up cutting them off.  The first couple went shooting across the room and from then on, one person cut and the other held the strings.

 

I have a neighbor that does "scrapping" and I'm going to see if he wants the cast iron harp frame.

Got the detached parts back into the shop today.   Will be back Monday to (hopefully) finish up and get the rest home.   The lid has seen better days and will likely need stripped and refinished.  I think it's too far gone to be refreshed. Here are some of the parts that will be converted into shelves and the keyboard that will be salvaged.

Before images

 

 

Top, keyboard cover, and music stand in the shop

 

Keyboard assembly

 

And I thought the piano mechanisms were complicated 

 

So, is there a quick way to tell if the keys are real ivory or plastic?   Or the black keys ebony???

A few dozen of the hundreds of screws in a piano.   I will NOT be taking them all out

 

2 hours ago, kmealy said:

So, is there a quick way to tell if the keys are real ivory or plastic?   Or the black keys ebony???

Going from memory, I was told that Ivory keys were 2 pieces laminated to a piece of wood. The top and the front are the 2 pieces, so a close exam may give you a clue. I think the piano would have to be much older than 50 to have ivory/ebony keys, but that's a guess. Besides it's possible that higher end (grand pianos) would have them when the less expensive ones didn't. No guess on the ebony, unless you destroy one.

3 hours ago, kmealy said:

A few dozen of the hundreds of screws in a piano.   I will NOT be taking them all out

 

Imagine putting them all in.

18 hours ago, HandyDan said:

 

Imagine putting them all in.

 

Thanks, Keith.  It is good to see people rather than robots working. And, those clamps are awesome.  That's why these pianos work so well and if it doesn't work as designed, it needs to be fixed.  I remember taking lessons on an old piano and the B note to the right of middle C was almost dead.  If you didn't apply an extra effort on that one key, the teacher noticed.  

 

I refuse to purchase products or services from vendors where you must check out yourself.  I will do without and pay more for having a cashier at the store.  So, even though this is hard work, it is great to see people actually building something and each unit is unique.  

I wonder if their methods have stayed the same in the years since that was made. John Steinway, the narrator, passed in '89. I hope they haven't succumbed to automation and outsourcing. 

Edited April 18, 20215 yr by Gene Howe

Building musical instruments in general put me in awe but pianos I think may be in a class of their own. Just the number of moving parts is daunting. Thinking back to the time when they were completely hand made what a feat it was for those people to design and build something so complex, and then make it sound so beautiful. 
Paul

Ugh, regretting this decision.   Another 3 hours today to try to get the harp off.   Found some new 3" screws, below the outside veneer holding parts on. Finally got that one screw out then discovered that all the tuning pins (a couple hundred) needed to come out.   They are a 5.5, 5.75, or 6.5 mm tapered 4 sided head that none of my wrenches really fit.  We got about 8 of them out before giving up for the day.  

This reminds me of the old saying "no good deed goes unpunished".

Edited April 19, 20215 yr by Fred W. Hargis Jr