Piano Restoration Project

   / Piano Restoration Project #1  

GaryBDavis

Gold Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2004
Messages
427
Location
Andice, Texas
Okay, what does a tractor have to do with a piano restoration project? Well, here is how the story goes.

Our church put me in charge of our old piano restoration project. After calling a couple of local piano restoration experts and careful consideration, it was determined that the piano was not worth saving and needed to be hauled off to the junk yard. Now, here comes the part with the tractor. Tractors with grapples are just the coolest things.
 

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   / Piano Restoration Project #2  
NICE!!!!:D
 
   / Piano Restoration Project #3  
Gary,

Steph has a family piano similar to that one that her ex put in storage up in Washington. Two years ago, we drove there to get it and bring it home. After seeing it and the condition that it was in, not to mention the fact that it doesn't work, had me thinking about doing the exact same thing with it for 2,000 miles!!!!

Seeing your pictures, but imagining her piano in it's place, sure put a smile on my face.

Thanks,
Eddie
 
   / Piano Restoration Project #4  
Most Piano's are rebuildable by anyone with an average mechanical ability. If the sounding board is cracked, it gets a lot more complicated. I taught myself how to repair and rebuild piano's and player piano mechanism's while in college. Just read a few books and practice on an old junker.

I worked PT in a piano store and when the owner's player repair guy told him the unit wasn't worth fixing, he'd just take it for parts, I made a deal with him that if I could fix it he'd give me $100 and if I couldn't I'd strip it for free. I read my books and had it working in about 2 hours.
 
   / Piano Restoration Project #5  
As a young lad It was decided Musical talent just flowed through my young veins. Piano lessons every Saturday afternoon were in order. They just managed to be timed so that the Last 1/2 hour of the Saturday Matinee would be missed.:mad: :mad: :mad:

Even more annoying was having to show my lack of skill to company. I became very adroit at being somewhere else with my .22 doing things young fellows normally do.

Music no longer flows through my veins but I can appreciate the sounds generated by those who do have ability.:D :D I also still have the .22. Skills developed at using it still remain. With a large enough magazine I think I could still manage to play the piano:D :D !

Please do not ask me my opinion of pianos.:eek:
 
   / Piano Restoration Project #6  
Egon: I learned the play the Theme from Exidus, and the first 18 bars of Moonlight Synodah sp. and when the boss went for lunch if a customer came in I'd begin to demonstrate on the least expensive piano and keep moving up telling him I was going to play the same thing so he could hear the difference. The boss usually got back before I got thru all the pianos.
 
   / Piano Restoration Project #7  
Way back when we picked up an old piano that looked just like that (FREE)! Always worry about those free items. At the time I had a Mazda pickup and we went over to get the piano and were able to somehow get it into the bed of the Mazda and tie it down to drive home. We used a couple of 2x12 planks and slide it into the truck.

Once at our house we backed up to the door and used the planks and a come along to pull it out and onto the porch. It sat in the front room for about five years, never got it tuned nor did anyone ever play the thing after the first week. Ran an add in the paper for a fee piano and sure enough it was gone about two hours after the paper hit the street. Bottom line of the ad read "be sure to bring help to load as husband is out of town this week"?


Wish we would of had a tractor back then!
 
   / Piano Restoration Project
  • Thread Starter
#8  
ToadHill said:
Most Piano's are rebuildable by anyone with an average mechanical ability.

A good portion of the hammers were missing. I'll leave out the part about the yarn and baling wire holding the rest of it together.
 
   / Piano Restoration Project #10  
I did that with a very old rolltop desk. Instead of using my grapple, I used my forks. Instead of putting it into a trailer full of junk, I was putting it on my 2nd-floor deck so I could put it inside my office. One bump and it tumbled off the forks and broke into hundreds of pieces on the ground.:eek: It's now stacked in my barn.:eek:

I learned two things that day:
1. Tie things down even though they are balanced on forks.
2. A fall of 8 feet can turn a nice desk into an instant heap of junk.
 
 
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