Blog
New life for an old piano . . .
This 125 year old Knabe would not hold a tuning any longer. First step – remove the old rusty strings. With the bass strings removed I send them off to the string maker.Its a long slow process but Im getting there. Using oversized tuning pins and a fresh set of strings this piano should have …
Read moreWell . . . its happened again
More work then one man can handle at the moment. I need to take a breath and tackle one project at a time. There are worse things in life then being too busy.
Read moreNot really the “great deal” you thought it was . . .
Time and time again I tell people to have a technician look a piano before spending money on moving it. This piano will not hold a tuning. You can see the white-ish outlines around the tuning pins. This tells me someone tried to “dope the block” with tuning pin tightener. Basically trying to glue the …
Read moreGiving the ol’girl a new lease on life . . .
This vintage of Chickering (1940’s) seem to be prone to bass strings popping. The customer is very attached to this piano as it was her fathers growing up in the 40’s. It was over a half step flat and evidence of string breakage. Sure enough bass string after bass string kept snapping. She was willing …
Read moreRebuilding an action on antique Steinway ex-player piano
A customer got a free Steinway explayer grand piano. It is over 100 y.o. and needed a new action badly. Glue joints were failing every other day. It was time to breath new life in the old girl.The piano also suffered from what is known as “verdigris” – meaning the center pin (or pivot point) …
Read moreHere we go again . . .
Something about the end of winter that makes people bring in their Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos for service. I like to tackle the pianos one at a time. No multitasking.
Read moreRestoring a Rhodes piano from the 1960’s
This Rhodes has felt hammers like a piano. They did this in the 1960’s. After 50 years of use you can see the deep grooves cut on the hammers.I am half way done hand filing them to get rid of the grooves and reshape them.Very uneven hammers. I need to bring up the hammers to …
Read moreA feather in my cap . . .
After years of trying to convince “The Piano Craft Guild” which was the old Chickering piano factory in Boston to get a Chickering for their front lobby, they finally got one. They asked me to refurbish the ol’girl.I am keeping it 100% original (warts and all) just as it came out of this factory. A …
Read moreYou learn something new every day . . .
1823 ha? I didn’t know that. Maybe they were good back then however Currier spinets from the 70’s are a hard piano for us tuners to love. At that time the quality was not there. Too bad.
Read moreHard at work getting this Hohner Clavinet back in shape
Although working on these beasts is not the most fun, the result is always worth itThis one is in very good shape (for its age) and fortunately does not need to be “re-yarned”. The final testing before I button it back up and out the door.
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