Renovations

We had a customer wanting a small white piano.

We had a small piano that had a good tone, but had had a rather rough time, in fact the case was in danger of falling apart.

So we got it back to the workshop, took it apart….

Then put it securely back together, and painted it.

The action itself needed little doing to it apart from realigning the hammers which in many cases were hitting only two strings of the tricords.

However, many pianos are just too old, shabby and worn out,  making them uneconomic to renovate.

Below is a photo of a worn out action:

You can see the piles of brown “dust”, which is actually the remnants of the leather covers (balance hammer leather, to give it the technical term) which you can see at the top of the picture, ground away to the bare wood by the mechanism.  Dust like this in an old piano it is a very good indication of wear, and should be avoided, even if you are offered the piano for free.

A lot of work will be needed to bring the action back to life, or the piano is headed for dissolution.

Their fate is shown below:

Of course, anything that can reused has been removed long before this!