Post #25 - Cracks Of Doom?

When we last left of, I was just beginning to get the piano in tune with itself - in tune being middle C actually equal to the G below it.  And, for the most part, the piano was staying in tune for longer and longer periods of time (i.e. days instead of hours, and then a couple of days instead of just one).

However, and this where the title of this post comes in, I was in the middle of fine-tuning (no pun intended) the upper octaves when I happened to glance slightly upwards from the tuning pegs to the top of the piano...  And saw a crack that I didn't think I had seen before.

Now, what you're looking at here is actually a piece of veneer that overlays the top of the wooden harp and frame.  There are several of them, about five inches long and go from the front of the harp to the back of the piano - I assume they provide decorative cover for the construction underneath.

This is the same veneer that I mentioned in the first couple of posts - where the various tuners from the turn of the century signed their work.  And, I knew that at least one piece had sustained some damage, that I took a picture of back when all this started...

This horizontal crack (which is the one of which I'm speaking) looks more like somebody dropped something heavy on top of the piano - the lid would have had to of been up, of course.  The vertical crack is not really a crack, though.  That is the seam between two of the veneer pieces; if you look carefully, you can see that it runs all the way to the back (although the gap is slightly bigger in the front).  There are similar seams between each of the veneer pieces.

The unfortunate part of this is that I did not take photographs of the entire veneer top - I got the interesting parts, the signatures and the horizontal crack.  So I can't be sure that these "new" vertical cracks weren't there originally.

But I don't think they were - these are real cracks and I was  specifically looking for damage when I was doing the initial pictures.  I'm fairly positive that these are new.

And there's more than one.  As you can see from that first picture, that particular crack appears almost directly above one the bolts that assume hold the hard to the frame.  Here are the others, from left to right as you go across the top of the keyboard:

 

 

 

That first crack is actually near the signatures, further proof that it's new.  As you can see, these other cracks (the last two) are also close to bolts as well.  Does that mean anything?  I have no idea, but I think it may.

 

The encouraging thing is that I don't see cracks in the pin board or the harp - just the veneer splitting.  I suppose I could - and probably should - pry up the veneer to see what is really going underneath.

 

But, after spending two weeks tightening and tuning, they seem to be stabilizing.  Well, they are not getting bigger.  And the piano is staying in tune better and better, as I said.  And, finally, I don't want to damage any part of this thing without a real need to - and I'm fairly sure that once those veneer pieces come up, they aren't going back easily or probably at all.  I've worked with veneer before.

 

So, for now, I'm going to leave well enough alone, cross my fingers, and trust to my luck - which has been holding so far.  I still have another week or two of fine-tuning to see how well this first tuning holds, so I'll monitor the cracks and see what happens.  Hopefully nothing.

Post #24 - Into the Dark Side

So...  Here we go.  Fixing up the outside, while not insubstantial or simple, actually IS the easy part.  Scraping, rubbing, filing, staining, painting, yes - that takes work, thought, process, and a whole lot of fore-thought...  But in the end, if you have a sense of what you're doing, if you're lucky, and most especially, if you're careful, you can make this work.  At least to the layman's eyes.  And, after all, that's all I ever really wanted.

But the tuning part...  Well, this is where the rubber hits the road.  There is no amount of steel wool, cleaning agent, stain, you name it, that will make this work out well if you don't or can't do it right. Or if the foundation that you're working on will not support what you want to do - and I'd been told that this is the danger all along.  Bad design, bad foundation.  Well, we'll see.  This is probably the Tipping Point between hope and reality.

With that in mind, I contacted my friends at the Piano Owner's Service Guide(http://www.stevespianoservice.com/) to order a piano tuning kit.  I got the Standard Tuning Kit (http://www.stevespianoservice.com/Online-Piano-Parts-Catalog/piano-tuning-tools-and-kits.htm) with a couple of extras, and that came with the CD, a piano restoration manual, and a whole bunch of really cool tools.

You will notice that there are no CDs or manuals in that picture.  Yes, I have them.  No, I have not looked at them.  I hate manuals.  Can't help it, that's the way I was made.  At some point, I'm pretty sure I will either a) regret this predilection, b) be forced to consult the written documentation, and/or c) both of these things.  But, for now, I get how this works, I think; I understand how these tools work, I think...  And I really want to see if I actually do.

I will say this up front.  I will never, never, EVER again bitch about tuning my 12-string guitar.  Never.  The process that I went through just to get this damn piano in tune with itself is a whole new scale of pain and torture, compared to any kind of guitar tuning.

I'm guessing this is where this blog is going to get a whole lot more boring and a whole lot less visual.  There's not a whole lot of pictorial stuff that goes into trying to tune a piano.  I will do the best I can...

The first thing I did was get my chromatic guitar tuner. 

The second thing I did was turn it on and place it on the keyboard (yes, the piano is once again in pieces, much to the chagrin of my wife, who likes to look at the prettiness of the outside).

The third thing I did was to strike the middle "C" key.

The fourth thing I did was begin to weep.  Middle "C" registered as a flat "F#" on the good old chromatic guitar tuner.

For the uninitiated, this means that - at best - this piano is at least 3 1/2 steps (C to B to A to G to barely F#) below the tuning pitch that it should be.  By any stretch of the imagination, this cannot be a good thing.

However, I bucked up my spirits, dried my eyes (not really), and decided that the first order of business was to get the piano in tune with itself.  And get middle C to the closest major note, upward, that was in the immediate neighborhood.  Since I was looking at something in the area of F#, I decided that going to G would be a good first step.

Armed with my chromatic tuner, a good set of rubber mutes, a really good red felt mute strip on the lower keys, I set out to get the first octave into the key of G.

Yes, you can see the tuner in the middle of that picture.

It took me a bit to figure out the mutes.  Basically, at least on this piano, there are two strings per note.  In order to get them both in tune, you have to wedge the mute in between the second string and the string of the next pair, thus muting the second string of the pair you are trying to tune.

Then, using the tuning wrench and the chromatic tuner, you get the first string to the pitch you want it to be - in this case, we're starting with G.

Then you remove the mute, forget the tuner, and tune the second string so that it is in tune with the first string.  This is where tuning a 12-string guitar actually comes in handy.  The concept is the same.

Once you have THAT string pair in tune, you move on to the next pair and repeat the process.  And you repeat that process for every string pair (G - since we're starting there, G#, A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#) in the octave.

And that's where the fun starts.  If you count the octaves in the picture above, you will find that there are 6 1/12 of them in there.  Not quite so much as the standard 88 key keyboard, but more than enough to be excruciatingly painful.

Make no mistake, I started this process almost a month ago,  The first day, I got the first octave, from middle C, in tune with itself.  The second day, I retuned the first octave (slightly flat, but not terrible), and moved to the next upper octave.  The third day, well, I threw caution to the wind and (re)tuned all the way to the top of the keyboard.

The interesting thing, to me anyway, was that the farther I got away from middle C, the more out of tune things got.  I would have assumed - and I'd love for someone to educate me on this - that the lighter the strings got, the less tension they would produce, and the more in tune they would actually be.  Not so, at least on this piano.

The one thing that did not surprise me was that, the higher in pitch I got - the harder it was to tell whether it was actually in tune or whether I could just not differentiate the tones at that high a pitch as I could at the lower ones.  I'm assuming that this is where the true master piano tuners are differentiated from the novices.

I was pleased to find out that, after I had tuned the upper half of the piano to itself (that would be middle C is really middle G) and then went away for a long weekend (to San Francisco, but that's another story) it was still essentially in tune with itself when I got back.

That's when I started on the lower octaves.  Interestingly, to me anyway, the lower octaves were far less out of tune with the piano (G) than the upper octaves.  Given the size of the strings and the general tension, I would have originally bet that these strings would have been WAY worse than the upper strings.

But, as with the upper strings, the lower I went, the harder it became to differentiate between the tones by ear.  And, of course, at both ends of the scale, the chromatic tunic became more or more useless the farther you went.

So, I'm going to have to develop an upper/lower ear to do this.  I know that - at some point - the chromatic tuner will help me at the middle C range and then I'm on my own, tuning each octave to the last.  I've already experienced that at each end of the range, and I have to say it's interesting to have to rely on my ear and vibrations rather than technology.  I'm not sure I've done that since my late teens...

At this point in time, I have the entire piano tuned, more or less, so that middle C is really middle G and everything else is more or less (I'm still learning) in tune with that.

And THAT means I can now walk by the piano, hit a C chord (really G - but if it sounds in tune, I don't really care) or whatever strikes my fancy, and it does not make me cringe, cry, or want to just blow torch the whole thing.

And that, in the final analysis, has got to be worth something - even if it doesn't last forever.  That remains to be seen...  At this point. I'm encouraged.

Post #23 - A Quick Diversion

You may remember a post, probably a dozen or so ago (sorry, I'm too lazy to actually see which one it was), when I went off on a tangent about finding the right lamp/lampshade to complete the look that Victoria and I were looking.  Then again, you probably don't - but that's OK, I go off on tangents quite frequently.

But, rest assured, I did make reference to the age of the piano and the fact that we wanted something that was in the vein of "Pretty Baby", burlesque/cat-house/Victorian style.  I found a lamp that had the correct height - it had to be around 6.5-7" tall with the harp to give enough clearance to the shade, when we found it, to stand clear of the top of the piano by at least a foot.  Otherwise, the lamp would not cast enough light over the keyboard to make it worthwhile.  And lighting the candles in the piano candle holders is not something you want to do every day - there are already more than enough burn marks on the key cover for my taste.

Just to remind you what we were looking for...

 

 

Well sorta.  We wanted it big, we wanted it Victorian, and we wanted it GOOD.

 

And we looked all over for it.  Antique stores, junk shops, you name it - greater Houston area (and beyond, wherever we happened to be) the lamp shade became a Quest Item.  If you know me - and Victoria, a well - a Quest Item is not taken lightly...

 

We found several that were close, but not quite.  Not big enough, wrong shape, not tassel enough, too expensive (a lot of those), you name it.

 

We finally went online to see what could be found...  While we really wanted vintage (a.k.a old), but it was becoming clear that anything old was not in good shape or couldn't be verified...

 

We finally found a shop, via eBay, that had hand-made shades.  And they were gorgeous, but not cheap - especially in the size we wanted.  But, after having done due diligence and given up on a miracle find, we had come to the conclusion that we'd have to increase the budget to find what we were looking for.

 

So we did.

 

We ordered it about a month ago.  This past Wednesday, it arrived...  And it was everything we had hoped for.  Check it out (I had to reassemble the piano, it was in the middle of a tuning session) to take these pictures.

 

 

I did actually light the candles (briefly) to get the total effect for these pictures...  They stayed that way for about five minutes and then got blown out...

 

We're not exactly happy with the lamp itself at this point (although it's the right height, it's really too skinny for that shade), so we have a new Quest Item - either a "fuller" lamp that has the right height, or some "stuff" that we can adorn the lamp pole with to make it look fuller.  Personally, I'm betting on the latter, since I have seen very few lamps of that height at all.  But we'll see.  We love Quest Items.

 

And finally, if you're interested in where we got the shade, check out http://www.plainjaneshop.com/ and give a special nod to Amy - she made our shade!

 

Next post, I promise, the tuning - I'm already two weeks into it.

Post #22 - The Key Cover

After the etching on the front piece, you might have thought that the key cover would be a piece of cake. No etching, no gold flake/inlay - just a cleanup job and putting it back in place.

Um, no.

Unlike the other pieces, the key cover is seen on BOTH sides - you see one side when it's closed, you see the other when it's open.  Then, there's the 4+ foot long brass hinge.  And finally, there's the piano maker's label that has to be preserved.

 

 

 

And let's not forget the music stand/holder...   Already removed in this photo.

 

 

As I started on this final piece of the exterior refinishing, I was starting to wish I was doing the etching again.

First, the brass hinge.  As there was obviously no way to go to Home Depot to replace this hinge, it had to be cleaned - and carefully.  Bend it, kink it, do anything at all bad to it, and we're talking an expensive custom replacement.

Yes, that seam is the hinge...  And this is what it looks like when you remove the 30-40 screws that hold it in place:

 

I invested in a large quantity of Brasso and left the hinge soaking (one segment at a time; I do not own any kind of container that is over four feet long), while I went back to cleaning up the wood.

Deciding that I would rather know sooner than later if I was going to screw up or wreck the Cadby logo, I started on that side of the lid first.  I cannot tell you the amount of care that went into testing whether any one (or all) of the cleaners I had been using would clean not just the wood but the label itself.

 

Luckily, after dabbing, swiping, rubbing, and praying, everything seemed to be working out well.  Then I got bolder and just cleaned the whole damn thing.  And it worked...

After that, doing the flip side was a cakewalk.  Clean.  Stain.  Polish.

Done

Finally, it was assembly time.  After all that work - this is what we ended up with:

 

And, finally, with the lid and the music holder back on:

To say that I was pleased (and I believe my wife is just as happy) is such an understatement.  I had no idea, when I started, if this could be done.  Which is how I like to do things, I guess...  The credit goes to the original builders of this piano - the foundation was superb.  All I really did was clean the grime off of it and show it just a bit of love (in the form of cleaners and polishers and stains, and a tad of elbow grease).

But...  It may look good (imho, and you may disagree freely), but the damn thing still doesn't PLAY.  I bang the keys when I walk past, and I cringe.  It's out of tune (badly) and it's out of tune with itself.

If I spent the $250 to but it and another $100 or so to repair and all I end up with it a good looking piece of furniture - well, I can live with that.  But that's not why I bought it - I want it playable.  And that's not going to be easy and maybe not even possible.

But that's where the second half of this saga starts.  The tuning kit and all the manuals and CDs and everything else has arrived (and, yes, while catching this blog up, they have been played with).

I don't really know how this will end, but - man - it's been fun so far.  And I've always wanted to try to tune a piano.  And now I have my chance.  The only unfortunate part is that Victoria will have to deal with the piano in pieces again.  I actually finished the refinishing part at the end of August and it was the end of October when the tuning kit arrived, so she's had three months of an assembled piece of furniture.  With a great deal of luck - a GREAT deal - maybe she'll get an assembled musical instrument when this is finished.

Stay tuned.  We're traveling for the next couple of days, but I'll pick up with the tuning part (not many pretty pictures, though) when we get back.

Post #21 - Time Is Of The Essence,,,

OK, I need to get these last two posts out of the way as quickly as possible - the goal is one post tonight and one more tomorrow.  You see...  I received the tuner kit on Friday (today is Sunday) and I've already been tinkering with what I received.  And, let me tell you, this is way more interesting - to me, anyway - that the strict refinishing stuff.

However - I am extremely proud, hopefully without being boastful, of how the exterior of this little project has turned out.  And, given the short forays into tuning that I've taken over the last two days (details to come), the exterior may be ALL that I have to be proud of.  That remains to be seen...

After the keys were as cleaned and refinished as I felt safe, the next part was the cover board that enclosed the upper part of the key action.  This is the panel that the candle holders (that in all likelihood were the deciding factor in actually buying this piano for both me and my wife) are attached to.  In the beginning, this is what we were looking at...

Now, you've already seen the cleaned up brass candle holders - just to remind you:

After cleaning up the brass, I could not do less for the wood...

The first task was to just clean it up.  I did not want to sand it down, the way I did to the top, and there were no big water stains on this section that would warrant that treatment.  So I gave it the usual light stripping with the wood cleaners, and then hit it the stains and wood enhancers.

Now, as you can see in the forefront of this picture, there is some fine etching that has been done to this board.  My original idea - I admit, because it was easier - was to stain this etching black and just continue refinishing the panel the way I had the rest of the piano.  So I got out the ebony stain I had used on the black keys and proceeded to swab it into the grooves...

 

 

Unfortunately - or fortunately, as the case may be - this didn't work out so well.  As you can see from the pictures above, the stain just kind of pooled around the grooves but never really penetrated them.  I kind of expected this - treated wood will repel stain - but I was hoping I would get lucky.  No such luck.

 

After a couple of unsuccessful tries, I wiped the stain away, and decided that I had to clean the grooves out so that the stain would find actual wood with which to bond and stay black.

 

I got out my awl and started to re-etch the groove etchings.  And that's where I found what I knew would be there - the grooves were originally gold.  Scrape away the crud and you get gold.  I knew it.

 

In the spirit of restoring what was original, at this point I abandoned any thought of the black way out of the etchings.  They had to be gold - it was the original plan (I inherently knew that going in, it goes with the manufacturer label, and it was what I wanted anyway), but the question was - how?  The original was most likely gold leaf (no chance in hell of that being part of the refinishing) and the etchings were extremely narrow and somewhat intricate.  I could spend weeks/months with a toothpick trying to fill these things in...

 

When in doubt...  Up to my beloved wife's artist studio to see what treasures I might find.  Now, granted, this is not a place I usually frequent - to be quite frank, it scares the crap out of me.  This room used to be my home office, once upon a time, but it is now Victoria's studio.  And she filled it with her dolls.

 

Ordinary dolls do not give me the heebie-jeebies, not even dozens and dozens of them staring at you while you rummage around looking for whatever supplies you need.  But this...   Well, let me give you a glimpse...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, seriously, how much time would YOU spend in this room.  Voluntarily??

 

So I got in, I found some gold touch-up paint, and I got the heck out of there...  And, as far as I could tell with the naked eye, not one of those dolls moved.  Then again, it WAS daylight.

 

Now, the question was - how do you get this paint, procured at the possible expense of sanity, into this tiny grooves without screwing up the rest of the woodwork?

 

 



 

 

I initially tried toothpicks.  That did not work...  So I headed back up into the Doll Zone (quickly) and found a paint brush with about 4 bristles - if you need an art supply of any type, Victoria probably has it...

 

That worked better, but it got paint outside the grooves, even with four bristles...  That's where I learned the additional benefits of very fine steel wool.  It took several tries to get the technique down correctly, but I found that if you were fairly careful - i.e. don't slop the paint all over the place - you can use the 4 bristle brush to get a large amount of paint into the groove, use a lint-free rag to distribute it, then let it dry.

 

Once dry, any paint outside the grooves can be lightly sanded off with the very fine steel wool.  Then just hit the panel with the cleaner and refinisher again to get the polish back...

 

You'll see the finished total product at the end of the next post, when we look at the entire exterior.  Let me just say that this process worked and it came out very well - and no dolls (or me) were killed or terrorized in the process.