Victorian Chickering Upright Piano

[crevicetool]

Resizing 'en mass...I worked on the keys as if it were one piece of wood. The guy who recovered them in 1948 (you'll see that on one of the later pics), almost destroyed the keys. I had to add wood to the fronts and re-bush most of them. The one key has it's new tops clamped on while the glue sets.

 

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Slowly coming together:

 

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New keytops and fronts. You can see the additional material added to the fronts to make the keys the proper size.

 

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While the white keys were being rebuilt, the ebonies got refinished as well. Six coats of black lacquer with a final hand polishing.

 

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The kit of punchings and felts one gets to level the keys. Also shown are the bushings for the tuning pins for the holes in the plate.

 

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New back checks and damper lever felts. These are at the back of the keys in a grand.

 

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Leveling the height of the keys. You stack various thicknesses of cardboard/paper punchings and measure the key over and over again, eighty-eight times. When you are satisfied with the height, you turn the whole stack over so that the felt rides against the bottom of the key. That's all new felt in the background too. Felt hardens over time, and when a key is released it can make an audible "clunk" against the hardened felt.

 

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Measuring/adjusting key travel.

 

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And the black keys....

 

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New hammers as arrived from the piano supply company.

 

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New hammer shanks. To me, anything that was worn in the action such as the rollers, backchecks, any felt, etc., needed to be repalced. In my case the springs, and bushings were in great shape so I didn't replace the whippens/escapments/repitition levers.

 

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Installing hammers and shank assemblies...using the old hammers as guides

 

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.

 

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New hammers glued and waiting to sand off the excess shank.

 

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Damper rebuilding:

 

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Hand polishing of the lift wires:

 

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Refelted and assembled dampers...

 

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Jig I made to set the various measurements of hammer travel/letoff etc. That cardboard in front is the height of the strings in relation to the keybed. That is how I set the jig. No, I didn't forget to felt the other key ends (green felt) - there ain't no dampers at the high treble strings.

 

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More regulating/setting. That's the name of the guy - in red - had some nerve writing his name in there after messing it up!

 

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Prior to installing the finished plate and anything else, it was time to make the necessary cuts in the keybed for the later addition of the MIDI player guts. Three Hundred pound case laid upside-down to cut the slot.

 

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Guide rails for the saw. Again, the measurements for this had to be done from the top then transposed (or whatever) onto the bottom. I had to made alterations to the keyframe, (cutting off the back inch and a half), the key blocks which will now do all of the alignment of the keybed/action since cutting this slot resulted in the back guides being eliminated. I'm not including all of those pictures as it doesn't pertain to a "rebuild". I did want to show this however, and you'll see that the slot runs right through the area that the pedals attach - so I will have to invent new trap work for those to be operable.

 

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Slot cut.

 

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The rail for the player mechanism is allegadley supposed to be enough to compensate for the loss of the structure after cutting the slot according to the manufacturer - but I'm kinda of a "overbuild" kinda guy so I routed out an area for a 1/4 inch steel angle iron to be laid.

 

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...and screwed to the remaining keybed. There are additional supports on the inside of the case as well.

 

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Ok, restringing...

Plate once again installed in the case. That's black paint on those hitch pins, and no I didn't mess up...

 

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They get covered with felt....

 

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This is why I "overbuild". Those are supports (including part of the old pin block)to take all of the pounding in of 245 tuning pins....

 

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I only have one "tied" treble string. The first one. I did tie this myself after much practice. The rest of the strings loop around the hitch pin and head back up to another tuning pin.

 

[crevicetool]

Then it's just a matter of pounding in all of those pins stretching the strings as you progress with a string stretcher (for real), and bringing up the tension. The towel serves to silence the strings while you're banging on the pins - you don't need to listen to THAT too! While you add strings you have to weave in that string cloth. Some piano makers didn't use it, saying that the length of string from hitch pin to soundboard bridge added "color". Chickering silenced that portion of the string with that cloth.

 

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close-up of the cloth...