The video below shows my process for restringing the treble section.

The plate has been re-installed in the piano, and agraffes have been aligned.

The plate is re-installed. In this photo, I've aligned agraffes, but a few in the top of the tenor section still need to be aligned.

Aligning Agraffes

It was a pleasure to relieve this fine old piano of its years of dust and grime. The soundboard finish was shellac, and as such the old finish was easy to remove with alcohol. Revealed was the beautiful blond of tight grained spruce.

Now it doesn't look much like the great dust bowl!

The refinished plate

As purchased, this piano had tuning pins which were generally tight, but with a few that were questionable. The piano was tunable, and in fairly good tune. The strings themselves were terribly rusty and absolutely needed replacement. The bass response was very poor as the copper wound strings were full of corrosion and dirt.

At this point the strings and tuning pins have been removed in preparation for re-stringing. Photos below show the current state of reconditioning. There’s enough dust on the sound board to create the next Great Dust Bowl!

Howard Baldwin Baby Grand - Re-stringing Step One

The soundboard: The next Great Dust Bowl!

Last week, I obtained a little 4 foot 8 inch baby grand made by Baldwin in 1939.  It is a reconditioning project that should be available for sale in July.  The piano has an original mahohgany finish that is still very attractive.  I’ll do a little touch up but won’t go beyond that on this piano.

On slate for upgrade:

• Restringing – the original steel wound bass strings have a tubby sound.  New copper wound strings will add nice resonance to the bass.
• Minor repairs and full regulation to the action
• New keytops
• New key bushings

The reconditioning started from the “bottom up” with clean up of the pedal lyre. This is both aesthetic and functional. Re-felting the bearing surfaces of the pedals results in a smooth, silent pedal action. The newly polished brass pedals look good, don’t they!

Hmm. That left pedal looks better!

Pedal Lyre after re-felting and buffing

After having done it the hard way, it is such a delight to find the easy way by virtue of someone else’s good thinking! Such is the case with the wonderful jig described below. When applying new key tops to piano keys, the notches surrounding the black keys present a significant challenge. Except for the notches, the sides of the keys can be trimmed flush with a flush trimming router bit, in much the same manner as one would trim plastic laminate on a counter top. But obviously, a flush trimming bit cannot do the notches. When I did piano rebuilding in the 80’s, this issue was handled with a hand held file. It was very tedious work.

In the June 1991 issue of the Piano Technicians Journal an article by Bill Spurlock describes a router jig for cleaning the notches. The jig below is an implementation of his excellent thinking.

The jig is used once the sides of the key top have been trimmed flush using a flush trimming bit. When trimming, the notch is left untouched, and a perfect notch is acheived with this jig. The router bit is a 1/2" spiral bit. The stop is 3/16" steel. When I first fabricated the jig I had no steel in the shop and tried a stop made of 1/8" brass. The brass flexed resulting in inaccuracies. The 5/8" hole in the stop was drilled to accept a bench dog for clamping. When I replaced the 1/8" brass stop with the 3/16" steel, I found that clamping was no longer necessary.

Preparing an old set of piano keys for new key tops is a critical operation. I designed and built this router jig to perform the operation of keytop planing with accuracy and speed. To preserve the geometry of the piano action, 1 mm will be planed from the key to account for the difference in thickness between the old ivory key top and the new plastic key top. This also produces a good flat glue surface for the new key top and a nice square notch at the rear for a professional appearance. The old ivories needed to be replaced because of extensive cracking, chipping, and missing pieces.

The photo to the right shows the key after exiting the jig. Note that the clamping mechanism is a simple, quick lever which holds adequately and keeps the process moving. The loose plate between the key and lever is coated on the lever side with some beads of hot glue, to provide gripping surface that would not be present in the hard maple. The router bit is a 1-1/2 diameter flat cutting bit. Since the key is less than 1 inch across, this diameter provides a cutting surface for both left side and right side of the key. Order of operation is:

1) With jig against right shoulder insert into about 1/4 inch. move to the left to plane the front edge of of the key (and the existing key front).
2) Slide the sled in to plane the left side of the key.
3) Move the sled to the right, forming the nice edge at the back of the key.
4) Pull the sled out to plane the right side of the key.

This order of operation will provide for proper rotation orientation of the cutterhead and produce a splinter free surface.

The objectives of accuracy and speed are met. This set of 52 keys was planed in 45 minutes.