New project: steinway

[JeffLearman]

Hmmm, maybe it was East Quad. I was crusing those pianos around 1975-1983. We probably passed each other on the way, or maybe that was you I was impatiently waiting for to quit already!

[Marzzz]

Could be. I never went into East Quad, too weird for me. The piano I played the most was the upright in Revelli Hall.

[LX88]

I used to work in a piano shop doing refinishing work, until small piano shops could no longer afford to stay in business in small towns.

 

I have seen people try to even out finishes using lacquer thinner and MOST of the time it is a futile process.

 

If you want you can PM me and I can perhaps talk to you and tell you what I know. It's too long to type and also I would have to see personally if anything can be done with this short of having to strip it.

 

 

[JeffLearman]

As it turns out, the inside of the action and piano in general are remarkably clean. I get the impression that after the partial restoration was done in 1980, the piano was used for a couple years and then returned to the owner whose son I bought it from, after which it wasn't played much at all, and generally left closed. Everything inside looks undisturbed for 30 years. One hammer shaft had been replaced, but all hammer tips were redone completely and are in absolutely lovely condition. The strings look nearly new with only a few tiny spots of corrosion across the whole set, still shiny with a slight and very even silvery patina.

 

However, I find there are three separate cracks in the soundboard, all at the treble end, and all on the far side of the treble bridge. One might pass under the bridge at one point; I haven't traced it completely yet. On some days, I get an awful brash noisy tone that I'll call 'buzzing' but it's actually worse than a mere buzz. Other days I can't hear it at all, except that note attacks aren't as clear and crisp as I think they should be. Other than that, the tone of the instrument is lovely.

 

It's going to be a challenge finding places to apply the clamps wmp posted above in some cases, due to the plate and possibly bridge being over the crack. In many places there are clear spots or ones where once a hole is drilled I'll be able to finesse the clamp in from above and screw it from below. I may need to fabricate my own; the one pictured uses stiff piano wire and I don't think I'll be able to get that to make the bend below the plate (near the holes at by the edge). I assume I'd want to drill right through the brace and soundboard.

 

I eased the hammer action centers (if I understand it correctly, the hinge on the hammer shafts) on the keys that didn't bounce back up after being played, about 10 or 15 keys across the keyboard. On most of these keys, I didn't even get a "tick" -- holding the (removed) hammer by its flange, pulling the hammer to an angle, and letting go, some wouldn't move at all, and others wouldn't even fall all the way down. On some I got a tick and almost a tock.

 

I used all of wmp's methods above except heating with soldering iron, staring with . A tiny drop of CPL was required in most cases. In most cases, that (plus working and applying firm but gentle pressure on various axes) In a couple cases, it helped a little too much, so I got tick-tock-tick-tock and one case even more than that. I can see that too much easing reduces the effect of the backcheck and probably has other issues, but still the fixed keys work far better than before.

 

After doing this and returning the action to the piano, the sluggish notes were fixed (yay!) However, the action overall still feels sluggish and slow, and so I'll be talking to a tech about this. I suspect that every action center in the action is just a bit tight. Hopefully there's a reasonable fix.

 

I read in Larry Fine's book about verdigris being a problem with Steinways of this era. Perhaps that's the case here, but I don't see any obvious green by the ends of the hinges.

 

[JeffLearman]

I used to work in a piano shop doing refinishing work, until small piano shops could no longer afford to stay in business in small towns.

 

I have seen people try to even out finishes using lacquer thinner and MOST of the time it is a futile process.

 

If you want you can PM me and I can perhaps talk to you and tell you what I know. It's too long to type and also I would have to see personally if anything can be done with this short of having to strip it.

 

Thanks!

 

I think I'm going to focus on the instrument first. If that proves a success, then I'll think about the finish. My instinct says you're right that evening out a finish wouldn't be a simple job. The top is the worst; the sides aren't too bad, so I'm thinking maybe I can get just the top reworked by a pro refinisher, reducing the hassle and expense of doing the whole piano.

 

Meanwhile my wife's scarf seems to do the job quite well:

 

http://learjeff.net/forums/keyboard/steinway/3%20-%20piano.jpg

[Joe Muscara]

Nice progress Jeff. You're a lucky man.

[JeffLearman]

thanks! I'll feel lucky when I get that nasty buzz fixed.

[wmp]

Given the results you got with the hammers, I'd recommend hitting all the action centers in the wippen assembly (flange, jack, and repetition lever) with CPL if you haven't done so already. I'd just hit them in place, without removing the wippens and hand massaging. Just work it by playing it. No harm in hitting the damper levers too, though I suspect that much of the remaining sluggishness is in the wippens, the key bushings, or both.

 

You have to remove the top action from the key frame to get at the key bushings. Two screws at the base of each action bracket, and it lifts right off. Considerably less dangerous than sliding the action out, and unlike dampers, it really is as easy as it looks.

 

Given that you managed to overdo it some with just CPL and a massage, I'm very happy you didn't use the soldering iron. It's very easy to overdo it with the soldering iron. It's important that you touch only the center pin and not the bushing, and it doesn't take much heat at all. Half a second more or less.

has an interesting way to accomplish the same thing by running electricity through the pin to heat it. His idea of perfect is way too loose. He should have counted to two instead of four.

 

Once you overdo it, you need a larger center pin. This requires center pins, my favorite extractor tool, and at least a rat tail or reamer, and a burnisher. Mess this up, and you'll need some bushing cloth and the little drill to clean out the dead bushings and glue. To set yourself up right for cloth action centers, it's approaching two hundred bucks.

 

Note that none of this applies to Steinways built during the dark teflon years, ~1968 through 1982. The same extractor works, but you must use Steinway pre cut polished center pins and tools available only from Steinway. If there's a teflon Steinway on earth that isn't sluggish for being too tight, or noisy for being too loose, I'd like to see it. In the late '70s, I had a major falling out with the Steinway folks over teflon. We called each other incompetent and much worse. I ended the last conversation by telling them that they would eventually wake up and go back to cloth action centers. Teflon is a great replacement for graphite on jacks and such, but not for action centers.

 

Back to your piano. If you're going to make mistakes with action centers, better to do that on the hammers. Hammers, shanks, and flanges are typically replaced in a complete rebuild. Wippen assemblies (aka reps) are typically restored, so get real good at action centers before messing with the reps. Best to find some junk piano parts to practice on.

 

I'd do whatever it takes to locate and eliminate the buzzes, no matter how ugly the fix is. What you got was an unplayable M that needs complete rebuilding. What I'd shoot for is a playable M that needs complete rebuilding. Even if I had to use a wood screw up through the rib and clear through the soundboard as a clamp under the plate behind the bridge, I'd do it. Most often, there are more elegant solutions than that.

 

You can use the thin blades on your feeler gauge to look for separation between the ribs and the soundboard, if you happen to have one. You'll need somebody to play and make it buzz while you crawl around underneath and hunt it down with your hands. Put a little upward pressure on the soundboard on both sides of each rib at the crack. A buzz as nasty as you describe should be pretty easy to find.

 

Larry is entirely correct about messing up a Steinway, but I wouldn't be overly concerned about parts that would be replaced in a complete rebuild. That soundboard will have to go before the piano is worth $20k+, and an ugly but effective repair will not hurt the value at all.

 

As for tuning, you have to do about 1000 pianos before you really get the hang of it. Hearing it is the easy part. Setting the pin so it stays where you put it is the hard part. I could never tune with that lightweight hammer you have.

 

I haven't looked at any of the new tuning machines or software, but I'd expect them to be better than you might think. In the old days, you really had to know your stuff to use a tuning machine effectively. Assuming that C-28 is where you want it, you'd tune E-32 by measuring the fifth partial of C-28, adding 13.7 cents to that, and tuning the fourth partial of E-32 to that. For octaves, measure the second partial of the lower note and tune the fundamental of the upper note to that. If the software doesn't do that sort of stuff for you, what does it do?

 

Congrats on your progress, bro!

 

[JeffLearman]

Had a nice long chat with wmp last night just before heading out to a gig. The guy is a fountain of great information! He says he hasn't been on the net much lately but sends his regards.

 

Armed with my new and no doubt dangerous knowledge, I'm likely to tackle the following jobs:

 

1) zapping the action centers (hinges) in the action to make it less stiff. The stiffness feels like friction, and while the keys could stand a bit of easing, that's by far not the major problem. From working the parts, it feels like those hinges just aren't swinging as they should. A drop of CPL on each one should work wonders.

 

2) raising the pitch, about 20 cents. I'll schedule a tuning first, and do this a day or so before the tuner comes. After my "tuning" I don't expect the piano will be very playable as my tuning hammer skills leave much to be desired. (Also, my tuning hammer was made by Rogers, which might be a clue that it's really intended for a different purpose.) I'll use the Tunelab software mentioned by Joe above (thanks!) It has a compensation feature when raising pitch, which will make things simpler.

 

3) gluing braces to soundboard around the 3 soundboard cracks. This should really be the first task, since if this doesn't work, the rest is a waste of time. I'll probably use a combination of tricks, including the soundboard clamp wmp posted above and simply drilling from below through the brace and countersinking a small screw into the soundboard (while the glue dries). I'm wondering what size screw to use; the soundboard is 3/8" thick says wmp.

 

4) refinish the top. The rest of the piano looks acceptable; only the top is really bad. The rest looks like an old piano, which it is. The tricky part might be matching the old finish. Hmm. This is definitely the lowest priority.

 

~~~

 

As for wmp's last question, Tunelab does damn near everything but hold your hand and turn the hammer. The first step is you sample a number of notes across the keyboard, and it measures inharmonicity. Based on that, it calculates a tuning curve intended to minimize beating harmonics while still getting the fundamentals in the right neighborhood. This tuning curve includes the temperment of the middle octave. It has lots of options for you to adjust its decisions if you had a clue, but I don't, so I'll take its advice! (Wmp says the Steinways have an excellent scale design, and variations from a standard tuning curve are rarely needed. Which is nice to hear.)

 

The software has built in what partial to use for each note when tuning it. I'd like to change that because it doesn't work well for the low end on Rhodes, but if it allows that I haven't found it yet. The UI is a bit confusing at times, more intended as a tool than as a tutorial.

 

When you tune a note, it shows two displays. One is an FFT that shows a peak where the fundamental or partial lands to left or right of a line which is the desired tune. The scale here is 50 or 100 cents either way, IIRC. (So, my piano is either 20 or 10 cents low. Next time I run it I'll verify that.) It also shows a strobe strip. Once you get the note close to the desired pitch, this does the usual thing of running to right or left depending on whether you need to go lower or higher, and stabilizes when you nail it. Just like a typical piano tuning strobe, only you only see the one you need to see.

[JeffLearman]

Not sure if I mentioned this above.

 

After the piano was delivered, the tuning seemed no worse than at the original owner's, and it didn't change noticeably after settling for a month (been busy with other things). Shortly after it arrived I touched up the unisons, which were actually in pretty good shape.

 

Here's the odd thing. While a bit flat, it was almost basically in tune. But the A's were terribly sharp, and the E's a bit sharp. An Eb major chord sounded great, but an F major made ones spine curl up. Most other chords in Eb sounded reasonably good, and the octaves up and down the piano were in sync with this odd tuning. I can only imagine that someone had tuned this piano to some historic temperment.

 

The guy who restored the piano after the fire was the dean of the music school at the NC School of Performing Arts. He was a serious musician and educator. He did the restoration himself, to use the piano as his home practice instrument. Some time after that the piano changed hands to the father of the guy I bought it from, and I believe neither of them played. So I suspect the restorer might have been the last person to tune it.

 

After fixing the A and E using Tunelab, and doing the octaves down by ear, the tuning became bearable to play, and I'd be playing it regularly except that the buzz takes the fun away.

 

It gives my hands a workout, especially compared to the relatively light Fatar action on my MR76. I hope my old tendons are up to playing real pianos regularly!

[JeffLearman]

Wow. Definitely found the major cause for the stiff action!

 

I'd planned to lube all 3 action centers on the whippen assembly:

 

1) where whippen hinges on its flange

2) jack hinge

3) repeat lever hinge

 

To do this, I pulled out the action, and removed the "upper action". The latter was simple, just remove 5 pairs of two screws on the iron rails where it connects to the keybed. (But FIRST, remove the leaf spring for the sostenuto bar.)

 

Then, to get at the action parts for each key, unscrew it from the rail. This screw is obscured by the backcheck when the upper action is in place on the keybed, thus having to remove it.

 

As soon as I pulled the first one, the problem was obvious. The whippen hinge was stiff as heck. I could prod each of the whippens (actually, pull on the hammer rest on each one and let it go) and see that here is where most of the problem is. The whippens should lift easily and fall quickly but gently back down. Instead they lifted and fell very sluggishly.

 

All the other hinges seemed fine. The jack moved at the slightest touch, and if I pulled back the repetition spring, the repetition lever hinged quite freely.

 

So this job ended up being less work with only 1 hinge per key rather than 3. (I'd already addressed the 4th, which is the hammer hingh. While these may still need work, I fixed the worst of them.)

 

While the action was open, I double-checked the keys to see if they needed key easing. They all moved rather nicely on the key pins, and while a tech with experience could say better, it seemed to me that they're good enough for now.

 

The action's back in place and I'm looking forward to giving it a try (when nobody's sleeping). I'm very optimistic.

 

If only the buzz turns out as easy to fix!

 

Note to those attempting this at home: when removing a hammer or whippen assembly from the rail, watch for paper-thin strips of wood between the flange and rail. They usually stick to the flange on the item you're removing. These are to adjust the angle, and you need to make sure they go back where they belong, when you re-attach the part.

[ITGITC]

 

Wow. I'm looking forward to giving it a try (when nobody's sleeping). I'm very optimistic.

 

Very cool, Jeff.

 

You are going to have a BLAST playing this beast!

 

Tom

 

[JeffLearman]

It works! ... and nobody is sleeping now, even if they were a moment earlier. It's even a "low buzz" day, and the piano sounds lovely. I can play a lot more quietly now, too.

 

When you gonna come over and give it a try? Bring Jimmy, if his ribs are up to it!

[Joe Muscara]

Dang man, lucky you.

[mate stubb]

I'm on the sidelines cheering you on!

[ITGITC]

When you gonna come over and give it a try? Bring Jimmy, if his ribs are up to it!

 

Dude! I'd love to hear what you've done with it.

 

Blueskeys is still incapacitated from that car accident, I think. I left a message, but haven't heard back from him.

 

Or it could just be that he has a few new friends, with benefits, taking care of him.

 

Tom

 

[MoodyBluesKeys]

Jeff,

You will enjoy the real piano - I certainly have enjoyed mine.

 

@Tom:

 

What happened to Jimmy? I hadn't heard about the car accident. Hope he wasn't hurt badly.

 

 

[JeffLearman]

Broke a couple ribs and sternum. I talked to him while he was in the hospital a week ago. He seemed OK but it hurt when he laughed and you know Jimmy likes to laugh. His truck didn't fare as well, unfortunately.

[JeffLearman]

So, the action really is worlds better. It's now a pleasure rather than a pain to play.

 

However, I finally crawled under with a good light to start to plan my attacks on the cracks. I was in for a bit of a surprise.

 

First, there are more cracks than I'd thought. I think I'm up to 5 or more. Second, many have already been repaired using methods similar to what I'm planning. I see at least 3 different styles of repair; whether they're from different techs or just different approaches for different cases I can't quite tell.

 

I'm not sure whether the old repairs are good news or bad! Might be good news: I have fewer to repair, focusing on the new ones only. (There's at least one unrepaired crack that looks very suspicious as the ribs clearly separated from the soundboard near the crack.) Might be bad news if some of the old repairs failed.

 

Anyway, I'll now focus on the new cracks and see how it goes. Meanwhile the buzzing has been low and I've enjoyed playing it; I'd enjoy it even more were it in better tune!

[Mike Martin]

Jeff,

Thanks for keeping us posted on the project and good luck with your repairs!

[Joe Muscara]

I might be wrong, as I'm not a tech, but I think you should find out which crack(s) is buzzing. If the others aren't, then perhaps you shouldn't try to fix them.

 

IIRC, you can have a crack in your soundboard and have a perfectly playable piano. Since something is buzzing, fix that. Trying to fix the others might waste your time and runs the risk of doing more damage.

[ITGITC]

 

IIRC, you can have a crack in your soundboard and have a perfectly playable piano.

 

I kept trying to tell her that... but she wouldn't listen.

 

 

[JeffLearman]

Yeah, they never listen!

 

Having big fun playing it. I touched up the tuning more and I'm really enjoying.

 

It's not trivial finding out which cracks are the bad ones. I'm going to fix all the unfixed ones (just regluing ribs to soundboard, probably holdng it with screws the way most of the old repairs were done. There are a couple places where there are beams in the way; in those cases I'll wedge something in there to "clamp" it while the glue dries.

 

This piano was restrung once (1980) and probably without a new pinblock. The pinblock seems fine, but replacing or even seriously repairing the soundboard means restringing, and since this pinblock has probably been restrung once it means I'd need a new pinblock too. The bucks would add up, though it would still be a pretty good bargain (assuming the job wasn't botched, ruining the piano).

[JeffLearman]

I decided to attack the easiest spots first, not even gluing yet. In the places where the brace was thick (about 3/4"), I drilled the smallest possible pilot hole through the brace and about 1/4" into the soundboard (from beneath the piano). Then I drilled a countersunk hole into the brace but NOT into the soundboard, of a diameter suitable for my screws which happened to be #8. (balaams-ass.com recommends #10 which look right, but I had #8 on hand and I'll size-up if I redo this with glue.)

 

In one spot the brace is very thin (and no doubt the soundboard above it too) so I used a round-head (not countersunk) type screw. I feared that countersinking would have weakend the brace, and there wasn't enough depth to take my countersink bit without making too big a hole in the soundboard. A better solution would be to use a countersink washer. This would distribute the load more evenly, and I'll probably replace that screw with this after my next trip to the hardware store.

 

I used a carpenter's combination square to measure the depth of the braces, to choose the right screw lengths. The guy at balaams-ass.com says ideally the tip of the screw goes just through the top, which surprised me but made me less nervous. Better too much screw than too little and stripping the wood in the soundboard!

 

Wayne (wmp) gave me a ton of great advice about this also, along with his helpful advice about the action and just about everything imaginable. As he put it, my goal should be to turn my "unplayable piano that needs rebuilding" into a "playable piano that needs rebuilding" and to not worry too much about fussy stuff.

 

While my soundboard has a number of cracks, it isn't what they call "shredded wheat", and a number of restorers would rather repair the old soundboard than drop in a new one. So, clearly I don't want to do any serious damage to it. But I don't need to be pussy-footed about it either.

 

So I drove in the screws, crossed my fingers, and played the piano. It never sounded better! The nasty buzz is gone and there's more note clarity. I think there's still room for more clarity -- note attacks are a bit on the brash or noisy side -- so I might attack the harder-to-reach places to see if I can improve it more.

 

But it's now a damn nice piano to play, and I've been playing my ass off. I need to learn more tunes, frankly. I think I'll start on The Entertainer. For my wife's sanity, I'll do the woodshedding on the digital with headphones.

 

I also hit all the hammers with CPL, which helped. Wayne says I should hit the other two action centers in the whippen, which I'll do some rainy day. Now the biggest issue with the action, I think, is that the escapement is a bit rough: old hammer knuckles that have been pushed out of round. It's only noticeable when playing very softly.

 

Thanks again to Wayne for all his sage advice!

 

Total cost of repairs, so far: $0.

 

Now all I need is a good pair of mics to record it so y'all can hear what it sounds like! I may make a quick mono recording with my SP B3.

[ITGITC]

 

Dude

 

 

[Joe Muscara]

Damn man. I gotta get working on mine. I had one good tech tell me it was at about 20% of its potential, so I have a lot of things I can do.

 

Congrats man, you are lucky you found such a piano at a great price, and now have a great instrument!

[JeffLearman]

 

Joe, big thanks for the resources you posted. I haven't got the Reblitz book yet but plan to. I got some great info at balaams-ass.com. Most of all, though, without TuneLab my piano would still be in horrible tuning instead of actually quite good. What a great program!

 

As soon as I have a real tuning scheduled, I'll bring it up to pitch just before the tuner's visit. Turns out it's 30 cents low. But I can't wait to hear it really well-tuned, and I think it needs a bit of voicing too.

 

Post pics on yours and tell us what's going on! Use this thread if you like or start your own. I'll be following it either way.

 

I was lucky that there were things I could do that required little talent that made such a huge difference.

[Joe Muscara]

Glad I could help, Jeff. And, I will post updates here or in another thread.

[JeffLearman]

Well, got the beast tuned. Tuner did a great job, the tuning sounds wonderful.

 

Here's the "but" part. Now that there's no shimmering from less than perfect unisons etc., the remaining flaws in the belly are more noticeable and irritating. My wife said the piano sounded worse after it was tuned!

 

So, I'll be hunting down and fixing a few more places. I need a piano player to help while I crawl underneath and fiddle. I'll try it first with my son. He's not a player, but has good ears and can definitely hear the flaws better than I can.

 

The quest continues. On the good news front, the tech said the ballpark value was twice what I paid for it. I asked how much that would change if I fixed the remaining flaws, and he said zero, because the belly has non-factory-style fixes (not just mine).

[Joe Muscara]

I'm unclear about these remaining flaws - are you talking about more buzzes and such?