Steinway D 411101 Bridge Caps Installed

Part of the restoration process involves recapping the old bridges. This is done by removing the original hard maple bridge caps and all the original pinning and notching. This process is complicated in the model D because the bass bridge is attached to the treble bridge. The laminated bridge body is constructed at the factory with plies of vertical maple being pressed in a caul to the "U" shape you can see in the picture. These pieces of maple are one continuous piece from note one to note eighty eight.

New caps of quarter sawn hard rock maple are then glued to the original bridge body.

After the glue has cured, the sides of the bridge cap are trimmed flush to the sides of the bridge body. The cap is thicher than necessary so that at a later time they can be cut to the correct thickness. This is called setting the bearing. After the bearing is set the tops of the bridges are finely sanded, the layout of the pins and notching are traced on the bridge and all is verified in the piano before the notching work begins. More on this later.