Steinway Upright #275147

Below is a Steinway upright refinished by James Vanderlin Co. of Williamsport PA. The piano was dis-assembled here in my shop, and the parts taken to Vanderlins' refinishing company. After the parts are returned the case needs to be re-assembled which includes polishing the metal parts, and installing rubber buttons. I am working on repairing and buffing the original ivory keys, and still need to install new hammers and damper felts.

#252119 Soundboard Panel created

The soundboard panel is constructed of quarter sawn Sitka spruce that comes from Washington state. It arrives at my shop in strips of wood that need to be edge glued together, and dimensioned to the correct thickness. Finally, it is cut oversize to the shape of the piano inner rim.

Steinway M 252119 Tear Down Complete

The above pictures show the soundboard removed, the pinblock removed, and the bridges removed. Now it's time to make new parts.

Steinway M 252119

This week I began a new project. The pictures below show the tear down process. The first step is to remove case parts and label for future reinstallment. Then measurements are taken to assist in relocating everything on reassembly. Then the strings are removed. I use a pneumatic wrench to speed up the process on turning out the old tuning pins. Finally the cast iron plate is removed. Now I have access to the old sound board and pin block for removal.

Steinway 411101 Sound Board installed

Gluing the soundboard to the rim requires quite a few clamps, as is in evidence in the picture. I use liquid hide glue for this application, as it has a long open work time, and is easily reversable, in case some one wants to install a new soundboard in the future.

Trim pieces are glued in place, the front edge of the board is trimmed flush, and the board is given a final sanding before the piano is masked, and lacquer sprayed.

The piano is currently at the refinishers getting a beautiful satin black finish applied. This is about a two month process.

Busy Tuning Month

I haven't posted for a while as December was a very busy month tuning pianos. I tuned over 100 pianos between Thanksgiving and Christmas, working 10-11 hour days six days a week. This past week I have been tuning pianos at Messiah College. I am looking forward to getting into a bit more relaxed schedule beginning this week. 2012 was a good year for Hess piano Co, with a good amount of shop work, and a total of 777 piano tunings.

Steinway D #411101 Soundboard Underside Finished

After the bridges are glued to the topside of the piano, the bottom side is ready to be finished. The first step is to cut a radius on the top of the ribs. Then nthere is a lot od hand sanding in preparation to finish being applied to the underside only.

The surfaces of the board that will accept glue need to be masked off before finish is applied.

With the underside finished, the board is ready to be glued into the piano.