The following topics are samples of the instruction we give in this business. You can find many more topics discussed in the full Table of Contents

Casters- Replacing and servicing

Please read the whole page for all pianos since various principles apply to all pianos as you replace casters.

The most common piano to need casters is the old upright, but grands and spinets need them occasionally. The grand or spinet upright should never be rolled around on their casters. If you roll a grand on its casters the casters will want to catch on anything that is in the way. Mic cables in studios and the metal strips in doorways are deadly. Also, casters on any kind of piano will roll a wave of carpet as they roll along. This wave will get larger and larger, and at some point it will fold. At that point the caster can catch on the fold of carpet and wrench the leg violently. This is when the leg on a grand or spinet will rupture at the top of the leg. The caster may also rip a hole in the carpet.

Spinets break legs very easily. The brass decorative casters on the front legs of a spinet should NOT be used to roll the piano around. In fact, you should remove the legs and desk when moving a spinet to prevent damage. Insist on this even with the best intentioned professional movers. I have many stories of professionals breaking the legs off of spinets, and about 85% of them try to blame you for it.

Full sized uprights are often rolled out the door and up the ramp of the moving truck using the piano's casters. It is always smarter to use a piano truck or dolly. But, if you want to move the old upright on its own wheels, do two things:

1. Buy new double wheeled hard rubber casters and install them before moving.

2. Cut two pieces of 3/8 inch plywood in 8 foot lengths by a little less than the width of the narrowest doorway.

Lap the two pieces of plywood so that the piano can roll from one to the other clear onto the ramp of the truck or trailer.

But, you came here to learn how to install casters, right? Well, I fooled you and told you how to move your piano :-)

Onward to the task at hand....

Lay the upright piano gently on the floor

The upright must be laid on its back to replace the casters. You will need a minimum of three men to lay a full sized upright down comfortably. Put two "two by fours" under it with the back edge of the piano resting on the ends of the "two by fours" BEFORE you start to lay the piano down. This way, after you are all through and want to stand it back up, the piano will be all the way standing up before the new casters touch the floor.

Dave Cochrane and I put an old upright down once so that I could replace the casters. It was heavy, but Dave is a big Irishman, and all went well until we finished the job and tried to pick it back up. We neglected the two by fours, and as we picked it up, the back casters hit the floor at about 45 degrees, and the piano took off all over the kitchen. The new casters wanted to take off the instant they touched the floor. Dave was bellowing like an ox and pleading for mercy, and I was having trouble myself. We finally gave a big heave, and got it up, but it was a close one. This is hernia country also.

It is also very hard to get a hold of the piano after laying it back down because there is nowhere to stuff your fingers under the thing and get a hold of it. So, do not delete the "two by fours" please.

Once you have the piano on its back, tighten the screws in the skid board under the bottom. This never gets done otherwise. If these screws are stripped, half fill the screw holes with toothpicks and Elmer's glue, and replace the screws. The skid board has the pedals mounted to it inside the piano, and a loose skid board will make the pedals wobble and work poorly.

Remove the old casters. Always use a size of screw driver which completely fills the slot in the screw. Do not be tempted to reuse old casters. You should have ordered a set of four before laying the thing down.

Do not stand an upright up on end to put new casters on. The thing will be very top heavy, and if it tipped for some reason, the results would be disastrous. Also, putting it back down, after upending, is very dangerous since the second the casters hit the floor, the piano will move and you will drop the other end on the floor. Not only will the piano be damaged, someone will be hurt badly.

Install all the new casters

If the screws holding the casters in were loose or spongy, purchase all new screws of the same diameter size but a half inch longer. Be sure they will not go all the way up through the mounting wood and out the top of it. If you are still in doubt as to the screws, fill the screw holes half full of wood splints and Elmer's glue before you reset them. Fill mostly the hole where the threads are with very little added wood where the threadless shoulder of the screw is. If the screw gets super tight as you drive it in, stop, and back it right out. You are working in old seasoned hard wood, probably oak. You DO NOT want to break off a screw head. Use a medium powered drill motor so you can feel the resistance, or hand screw them in.

You may have caster sockets which have three holes, and all new sockets are now four holed. In this case use one hole again, and drill new guide holes for the other three screws. Drill the holes at somewhat of an angle away from the old holes so that the wood does not break through between the old and new holes. Be sure to drill a guide hole which is small enough to let the screw threads bite well, but too small a hole will result in an over tight screw which will want to break off.

Sometimes the center mounting hole in the wood, for the vertical part of the old caster socket, is bigger than the new one. This happens if the old turn of the century cast iron sockets were used. This is why the wood grommets are provided with all double wheeled rubber casters which we supply. If you purchase casters made for general applications instead of just for pianos, you will not be able to fit them into the original holes. We carry all casters and sockets in our Online Catalogue.  

If your old piano had drop forged sockets like the ones we sent, read on below. If they had cast iron sockets, and if the center holes are just slightly two small in diameter to receive the wooden grommets we sent, you will have to ream them out with a flat wood bit. You will have to use ONLY a 7/8 inch flat wood bit. Check the height of the new drop forged socket, and if it is taller than the original arrangement, you will need to also deepen the hole for the socket with the wood bit about 1/4 inch. CAUTION: Don't go through into the pedestal above the caster or through the wood mounting bar. Be sure to take into account the centering tip of the flat bit !!!!!

Once you are sure the socket holes are right, (where cast iron sockets are being replaced) insert the wooden grommets into the holes FIRST, and tap them in until they bottom. Next drive the caster sockets into the wooden grommets or the holes until the round or square plate bottoms. If the mounting plate of the socket does not bottom, pry it out, remove the wood grommet (ugh!), and deepen the hole for the socket vertical piece a little more. You MUST have the socket plate mounted solidly into the wood of the piano frame.

DO NOT hammer on the wheels. Get a big screw driver, and place the bit down on the end of the pin under the wheel, and drive the caster into the socket with a hammer. It is possible to screw the socket into the piano with the wheel in it, but you MUST be sure the socket is going to fit before trying this. You will have to leave the caster in the socket when replacing Darnell casters with the cast iron socket. This is a very exceptional application, so seldom will this apply to you.

If your casters had the same kind of drop forged caster sockets as the original, you may be able to put in the new ones without any alterations. Even so, do not use the old caster sockets. They may be slightly different in how they hold in the caster wheel, and they may have loosened from age where the vertical piece is attached to the plate of the socket. Also, the screws are almost always loosened from age, and they must be replaced with slightly longer ones and possibly with the wood and glue trick.

Once the casters are inserted, rotate them while pushing down in them. If they catch on the wood bar in which they are mounted, you must pry them out and route out the wood so that the caster carrier metal will clear the wood by at least 1/8 inch. If you fail to do this, the casters will catch on the wood frame and will not rotate. You can buy a drum router which will mount in your drill motor and work the wood recess down. Be careful about controlling the thing so that you don't jump over and damage the veneer. If you return the casters for a refund at this point, I can assure you that you will never find rubber wheeled casters that will work without altering the wood area. If you do not want to do a little innovating, don't try this job please.

Put a very small amount of light oil, NOT WD40, into the friction points of the casters. Do not put enough to run down on the carpet. Make sure the mounting screws are securely replaced.

Now set the piano up.

Grand Procedures

A grand piano is somewhat easier to do than an upright. The key is to use a safe way to raise the piano so the legs can be removed. You may lift the whole piano up on saw horses, but it is easier to raise up one leg at a time and rest it on something. Remove each leg one by one and finish the job on each leg before going on to the next. Do not lift the piano more than two inches off the floor.

You may want to purchase the Grand Stand for this purpose.
If so, buy only one, and do one leg at a time.
Never put a grand piano up on more than one Grand Stand.

Learn more in the Moving Section of the Online Catalog.

A good time to change the casters is when moving a grand piano.
The legs must come off anyway, so you can do the casters before replacing the legs.

Grands legs come off in several possible ways:

1. Some legs are simply held on with two large screws. Remove them, and the leg will drop right off.

2. Some pianos, Steinways in particular, have a tapered wood bar which wedges between a wood piece and the leg of the piano. Remove it, and thump the piano leg inward, and the leg will drop out of the metal mounting pieces in the leg and piano body. Tighten the screws in the metal pieces embedded in the leg and piano body.

3. Some grands have both screws and the matched metal pieces in the leg and piano body, so after taking out the screws, you will need to thump on it sideways to move the leg inward and remove it.

4. Some pianos have a wooden or large metal toggle which wedges against the inside of the leg top. Tap it until it turns out of the way. Then tap the side of the leg until is moves inward and the two metal mounting piece become disengaged and the leg comes off.

5. Some square grands have round legs which unscrew. The top of the leg may have a huge wooden threaded extension which screws into the piano body. This can be a hard one to figure out because there may be another method of attachment. Some squares have legs attached in one of the same ways as the above four. Be cautions.

Grand casters sometimes have round sockets, but more often they use square ones. We want you to find out before ordering so we don't send the wrong socket. If you have very old casters they may have had a strange socket arrangement. You must remove a caster completely and compare it with the online Caster Ordering Page on our site. If they are different, you must either send an old caster to us for matching, or send a digital graphic in .jpg format as an attachment in e-mail.

Read the upright instructions above, for some of the fitting instructions may apply. Such things as routing out the wood when changing from metal to rubber casters, and the fitting of the vertical part of the socket, may need fitting before inserting the new sockets. Do NOT leave a socket loose in the mounting area. If the socket does not fill the hole, the new socket will twist and become damaged, and we will not take it back for a refund under any conditions. If you are unsure of yourself, call a technician to help you install the new casters.

You need to be very careful about your fitting of the screws and sizing the holes into the legs of a grand. For example, the full sized upright leaves room to run a new screw hole in at an angle if you break off a screw head, but the legs of a grand are unforgiving.

There are large solid brass casters on some newer grand pianos. If one is damaged of lost, we may be able to find a replacement, but it will have to come from Europe, and you will have to buy all three since it is impossible to match originals on most grands.

You may want to consider caster cups in which to set the wheels of a grand piano. CLICK HERE to see the selection.

Spinets

Some spinets had the same brass casters on the front legs and at the rear of the piano. Some had decorative brass casters on the front legs and plain steel ones in the rear. Be very sure of what you have before ordering from us. We can almost always match the front and rear ones, and we do sell two casters for this need. It is very smart to replace all four casters when doing this so that they are all new. Since you must NEVER roll a spinet on the front legs, you will want rear casters which are in good condition so that you can lift the front and move the piano on the two back casters.

The rear casters may be special, and the front ones most certainly are very special to your spinet piano. We can match them, but several choices have been used over the years by many piano makers. So, go to the Online Catalog for the Caster Section, and study long and thoughtfully to see which ones you need. If in doubt, send a digital photo in .jpg format so we can have a look also. We also are happy for you to mail a sample caster so that we can make sure we send the right ones.

Send it to:

Steve's Piano Service
P.O. Box 39
Kingston, TN 37763

Installing the casters is common sense mechanical work. You need to be very careful about your fitting of the screws and sizing the holes into the legs of a spinet. For example, the full sized upright leaves room to run a new screw hole in at an angle if you break off a screw head, but the legs of a spinet are unforgiving. You will be able to do some improvising in the rear, but the front casters must fit without any changes. So, let's be sure we get the right ones for the front.

A last warning:

The big old upright piano will now seem very easy to move around on the new rubber wheeled casters, and you will be tempted to just shove it here and there. The moving rule still applies. 80% of the weight in the piano is in the back 8 or 10 inches. If you roll it side forward, and one of those new casters catches on something, the piano will slam down on the floor, or your foot, and you will not be able to stop it alone. Two men must move it, and they must have one hand gripping the handle around back and their shoulder into the thing to steady it. Move it longways forward only.

Keep your eye on the rail, your shoulder to the wheel, and your nose to the grind stone, and you'll get run over every time :-)

To order casters from us, see the Online Catalog.

If you need to move a piano back and forth between performance areas, you will save the tuning, and prevent damage to the piano, if you invest in a piano dolly. They aren't cheap, but they save damage to the piano and are much safer for frequent moves. If you opt for this choice, do not buy new casters since they must come off to mount the piano on the moving trolley.

Send E-Mail so we can talk over your situation.

Piano Key tops- White and Black

This is a job many piano owners have done themselves. I shall try to help you to get perfection. This job is really one of the most practical for the do-it-yourselfer since so much money is saved-- as much as $500.

Cleaning Key Tops

A customer reports that he brought old badly yellowed key tops back to only a light off white shade with "Quick Bright" from the hardware or grocery store. You can experiment with very light doses of bleach also, but beware of bleaching the sides of the key. Also, too much moisture will warp ivory, and it will never lay down again. Real ivory can be cleaned with key buffing compound, which we sell in our Catalog online, and you can buff the ivory with 0000 steel wool. Buffing will leave the ivory key top at just a bit more dragging effect than the musician finds is ideal. But, many musicians like too much drag rather than too little.

Chipped ivory can be filed to remove the overhang, but if you do this do all of them. Also, it is a very hard thing to fill the chipped out bits and have a perfect looking job, both in color and smoothness. I have yet to learn what is ideal to fill these chip notches. It is also acceptable to simply file the front overhang off. This shortens the keys a bit, but the blessing of not being nicked all the time, as one plays, is a real improvement.

Sharps can be cleaned, if they are ebony, by buffing them with 0000 steel wool from any hardware store. Do not stain or put anything on real ebony. Ordinary hardwood sharps can be stained after buffing, or they can be painted. The results of painting are not often very satisfying.

If you replace white keytops and not sharps with new, you will very likely be disappointed in the sharps. This is done pretty often, and I would suggest you do both whites and sharps. We do supply new ebony sharps if you have the cash.

White key top replacement

Open the piano (Chapter Five), and take all the white keys out. If the numbers which are stamped into the key wood are hard to read, and you cannot tell "8"s from "3"s, mark them again with a felt pen before taking them out. If spinets keys have only two lines to match the keys, number them with a pen anyway.

You should have a full set of new white key tops that you ordered through your tuner or my Online Catalogue at the back of this book. I strongly encourage you to buy the key tops with the front molded onto the top. This "L" effect will help hold it on better. There is the proper amount of overhang included on these keys.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS NEW IVORY.  International law forbids the killing of elephants.  Furthermore; real ivory is now very undesirable since new type plastics have been invented. So, you need to get the old ivory off of the white keys if it is in suspect condition. Find a thin blade to slide under the ivories from the front, or start in the rear of the narrow part of the key tops. Try to avoid going downward into the grain of the wood. If you do, you can fill the lost wood with Weldwood wood filler from a local hardware store and file and sand it smooth again.

I will buy all the good ivories that are not chipped or broken at $5 per dozen if you mail them to me-- even discolored ones. Only send the wide front ends, not the narrow shank pieces. Don't try to clean them up. They break easily, and I have a way to clean them up.  They have NO collector's value as some folks imagine.  They are only useful to piano owners who want to replace one or two real ivories. SEND MAIL for details.

Next, clean all the white filler and cloth off of the key tops. If you leave it on, it will make the new tops cock eyed, and the key tops will not be lever. Scrape the sides of the key fronts to get all the finger crud off. This is cosmetic, but it will be much more noticeable with the new tops on.

Last step in preparation is to remove the white piece on the fronts of the keys.  Do not remove them, of course, if you wish to only put on the tops without the fronts molded to the tops. It is cellulose on old pianos, so just carve it away, and clean the front down to wood. You may find this the most frustrating step in the whole process since the cellulose is often very well attached. One fellow burned them off since cellulose burns very well. Be very careful as you get to struggling with the knife and the fronts. We have had several people cut themselves rather badly doing this.

Notice that the key notation of each key top is on the back end of the key. Follow this marking strictly. A key top for two notes may seem to be interchangeable, but you will regret not using those guides. Also, notice that the extreme keytops at either end are special in width. This is rather obvious. I just like to mention obvious things since one is apt to be correct making such speculations. :-) Hey, when a Senator makes the most obvious comments, the crowd swoons with delight. Cut me a little slack too, OK?

I recommend you not use the volatile glue suggested from a piano supply source. If you happen to get a finger damp with this kind of glue, and touch the top of a new key top, you will leave a finger print which will NOT come out. Get a tube of GE white (white only) silicone at the hardware store. It does not hold as well, but I have had only two come off in 20 years. If it comes off later, you can easily clean away the old glue and glue it right back on.

Put an amount of silicone on the wood key top. Try to imagine the minimum needed to completely cover the top. Don't try to spread it with a tool. Be sure to get some on the front face of the wooden key to hold that part in place, that is, assuming you are using the key tops with the fronts molded on. Place the new plastic key top down on the silicone, and slide it toward you. This will spread the glue. Do this two or three times. Finnish by pushing on the front to spread the glue under the front. If any glue comes out the edges you may wipe it off. If any gets on the key top, don't panic. You can remove it after the work is all done by rubbing it with your thumb and forcing it to roll off. If you don't take it off now, you can trim it off when the work is all done with a razor knife, but with care not to slip and scratch the top.

You need to clamp it some way as the silicone glue dries. Try to avoid big "C" clamps. They are hard to control.   Buy some narrow window screen molding from the hardware store, and cut it into pieces the length of the key tops.  Put one piece of the wood on top of the key, and use rubber bands to hold it tight. (See the diagram) Let the glue dry for at least as long as the directions on the tube call for. Try to position the key top so that any overhand is evenly divided from side to side. Again, make sure the front is pushed all the way back hard against the front of the key lever.

The new key tops WILL hang over the edge of the wood key slightly. Don't worry, you will file this off AFTER the silicone has dried, but PLEASE take your time and make sure the new white top is centered so that the overhang is equal on both sides. This is important.  DO NOT adjust the key top so that the rounded edge is flush with one edge of the key.  It will make for hard finishing work later. 

After you are sure you have it right, hold the whole mess of wood, plastic, and rubber bands about eight inches from your nose, and look it over from every angle. Look for the slight misalignment that must be there. Don't be easily satisfied. Look for termites also. What better time than now to catch any of these beasties walking about on your keys. Hey, if you want formal instructions, go to Harvard :-)

Lay it down very carefully without tension against the plastic key top-- in other words, not resting on the new key top. Also, beware of little people (and some grown up trouble makers) who just HAVE to pick everything up and feel it. They claim they are, "just looking at it." I find this bizarre since looking is generally not done with the finger tips. Oh well, such is life.

You may want to do several a night after work rather than all at once. That way you can concentrate on the job and be a perfectionist at it. Hurrying will get you poor results.

Once you have several (or all) of the whites glued on, you now need to dress the edges.

Step One- Find a medium size fine toothed flat file. File the "notch."   (Study the diagram carefully as you go through this process)  The "notch" CANNOT be left undone since it is essential so that the front of the sharp does not hang up in the notch. Be sure to file the key DOWNWARD and at an angle matching the angle of the notch. If you file UPWARD, you will probably knock the new key top off. File the plastic flush with the wood in the notch.

As you file the "notch," DO NOT glide sideways into the long side of the key top. You could have another notch in that side which you cannot get out.

Step Two- File the long edges and side of the head of the key flush with the wood sides. Remember-- DOWNWARD please. Also, beware of digging into the notch and making it uneven.

Step Three- Round the long edges you just filed flush. Use long even downward strokes so that the edges are straight and smooth. Let the file drift from one end to the other of a long side, whether the head or the tail of the key, so that the edge is evenly rounded over its whole length. The round edge should be quite modest-- just enough to keep the pianist from catching the fingers on the sharp edge.

Step Four- Last, file the front overhang corners rounded. Again, be conservative, and use your first one done as an example for all the rest.

You may have to dress the "notch" slightly, when you are all done, to get a neat appearance.

Now, put the white keys back into the piano with the sharps. Do any of the keys drag on each other? If so, do a little filing, observing the rules above, to make things fit.

Black key top replacement

Blacks are much easier to replace, and they give a really clean look if they are new. Do not try to do the sharps while they are in the piano. The only time I suggest you keep the old sharps is if they are ebony. Ebony is so rare and beautiful that I simply buff them with 0000 steel wool and put them back. Ebony comes from the high altitude forests of Africa such as the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and the Ruinzori Mountains between Uganda and The Congo. The beauty of ebony is beyond anything I have seen in any other wood. But then, I am prejudiced-- I grew up in those African hills.

Removing the old blacks, or sharps, is harder than removing the ivories. This is because the wooden sharp is glued directly to wood without the layer found between the ivory and the wooden key lever. So, you will again need to slide a very thin blade under the sharp and try to work the blade along under the sharp until it pops off. It will be much easier to catch the wood of the key lever and start down into the grain of the key lever wood. Just be sure you are working with the grain, not against it. If a piece of wood comes out of the key lever, use the Weldwood from the hardware store to fill it. File and sand it level.

You should have a set of sharps you ordered from my Online Catalogue. There is no order to the sharps. Just make sure that the front of the sharp does NOT hang over the front of the wood. (See diagram) This time, you can glue them on with either Elmer's glue or the GE Silicone.  Also, make sure they are straight on top of the wood. Do not clamp them, but set them carefully level so that they will not ooze to the side as they dry.

After they are dry, use a black permanent felt pen to touch up the black dye area of the wood of the key lever so that it is all black when a natural key is depressed when playing the piano. When you put all the keys back, if the blacks and whites rub a bit here or there, DO NOT file the sharps. Work the white key down, or tap the key lever center pins right or left very slightly to make clearance.

If you don't feel like you can do this task, we can find you someone who will do them for you.

Piano Tuning pins- Tightening

Tuning pins- Tightening-

The tuning pins appear to be mounted in the metal harp. They are not. Rather; they go through the harp holes, and they are mounted in a wood block behind the metal harp or plate. Most manufacturers go to great lengths to give you a wood pin block which will last for many years. The problem is that you cannot see the pin block, and if they want to slip you a piece of cheap pine, then declare bankruptcy and run, you get stuck with the results. It has happened more often than we would like to admit.

There is a point at which a tuning pin is so loose that major repair is needed. If only one or two of the pins are loose, and the piano is not very old, then the problem is either a small flaw in the pin block, or the factory assembler made a blunder which is just now showing up.

If your piano is still within warrantee, DO NOT try to repair it.  Contact the piano manufacturer at once, and demand attention.

So, you called the tuner, and he could not get some of the tuning pins to hold. He gave you a price to "dope" them or shim them, and you couldn't afford it. I hope we can help you do it yourself.

Tools:

If you are going to finish the job, you will need all or part of the the following:

Tool Kit for gifted do-it-yourselfers- Find this in my Catalogue at the end of the book. After you tighten the pins, you will have to re-tune the wires that slipped.

Sand paper- One sheet about 200 grit. Get the water immersible kind, and varnish the back long before you intend to do this job.

Metal round shims- You can order these from my Catalogue, or order them from your tuner. They are made just for this job.

Pin Treatment- From my Catalogue.  You want the 7 day drying time. It works the best. I don't sell any other kind.

3 or 4- 1/64th inch drill bits- These are used in the "doping" treatment.

An injection syringe- For applying the pin treatment. You can find this at a farm supply store in the cattle and horse treatment section. Otherwise, ask any friends who use them for insulin self-injection.

Denatured alcohol- For diluting the pin treatment IF you do not get the pre-mixed variety.

Drive the pins in:

This is the simplest way to tighten the pins, IF it works, and IF it has not yet been done by a former tuner. You will need the Tuning Lever, the rubber mutes, and the Pin Setting Tool from the tool kit you can order in my Catalogue at the end of the book. You also need a medium weight hammer.

There is no way you can improvise this job with other tools. I would tell you if you could, so order the tool kit if you intend to try this.

This technique will not work on most spinets and some consoles. The reason is that this abbreviated pianos are abbreviated in the pin hole depth. The factory gives you no extra hole to drive the pin into. Still, you can sometimes bottom the pin by tapping it in and get a little tightening. It won't hurt to try.

Also, some grands have such thin pin blocks that the pins will hang out below the pin block after they are driven down. Take the key cover out of a grand before you do this to check. With a flashlight, look at the under side of the pin block to see if the pins are already at the bottom of the holes.  Feel around, or poke a goodie up a pin hole from underneath to see if they gave you a little extra hole length. Isn't this mysterious?  If the pins are not now flush with the bottom of the holes, you can proceed to drive them down from above to tighten them.  Check Chapter Five on how to open the Grand keyboard area.

CAUTION: William Postell sent mail and reminded me of this-- On ALL grands, when tapping pins deeper into the pin block, you must support the pin block from underneath. If you don't you could crack or damage the pin block further. This is because the grand pin block is hanging from the underside of the harp at that point, so your tapping is giving the pin block a lot of shock. A small jack for this task can be bought in my Catalogue, but for the amateur, try to find some improvised tool. Remove the action as in Chapter Five, and find some tool which you can use to add pressure to the underside of the pin block. Perhaps blocks of wood and wedges could be used, but check frequently to make sure they stay good and tight. Wedge your jack or wood wedges between the keybed and the underside of the pin block. Thanks to William Postell for catching this.

The following technique will work well on all old full sized uprights and grands.

Once you have all tools in hand, identify the note with the major twang. It will be very harsh and brutal. Mute out wires, striking the key, until you have determined which wire has slipped. It will be way below the other wire or wires in the note.  If you suspect a single wire bass note, play down the scale.  If a pin has slipped, it will be way below the notes on either side of it. 

Look at the tuning pin anchored to that wire. Is it up at the same level as the other pins in the area? If it looks like it has already been tapped down, you must go on to the next tightening method.

In the illustration, A, shows you that you have up to three eights of an inch to drive the pin in. It doesn't seem like much, but it will definitely tighten the pin, possibly enough to hold. Tuning pins are tipped back from the tension direction at a slight angle. You can see in, B, that the hole runs at a slight angle. When you tap the pin down into the hole the pin will be jammed into the remaining hole and slightly tighten in the whole length of the hole.

It is important to notice the recess the pin sits in. If you tap the pin down too far, you will bind the wire on the shoulder at C, and you could break the wire. Stop just short of the shoulder.

Now, you want to know how to tap the wire down, right? Get your pin setting tool in your non-dominant hand. Seat it all the way down on the tuning pin. Put some tension on it in the direction of tightening the pin. Why? Answer: So that when you hit the pin, the pin don't let all the tension off the pin. This is bad, and later you can break a wire.

Now, tap the pin with your hammer. Use the flat side if it is a ball peen. Keep tapping until the wire stops just short of resting on the edge of the hole at C. Keep just enough tension on the pin setting tool so that the pin does not tighten of loosen as you tap it down.

Lastly, bring the wire up to tension with the tuning lever. Use the mute, and match the wire you are raising to the one next to it. Be careful not to go too far, or you could break the wire. If this works, and it almost always does, you can expect several years of reprieve before you have to go on to the next step.

I have to warn you that pounding tuning pins down tends to be somewhat depressing, as are most of my puns.

Pin Treatment method of tightening tuning pins:

If you have an old upright named Wegman, skip this section. In fact, you cannot tighten Wegman pins any way.  In fact again, Wegman made a piano that was pin loosening proof.  I cannot understand why the trade did not follow their lead.  If you have a Wegman, DO NOT sell it.  It is worth keeping just for the tuning pin arrangement. 

Now, we come to my secret. All tuners "dope" tuning pins. This means that they slop pin treatment liquid around the pins with an ear syringe or some other klunky instrument. The best tuners in the trade use this kindergarten method.  I have developed a method to "dope" pins that is mine. It is like the proverbial fishing hole. This is the first time I have told the world about my method. Hubris in abundance, right?  Just for you ordinary flatlanders-- It gives me real joy to slip you folks my secret-- FREE! 

Tools you need:

You will need to order pin treatment "dope" from my Catalogue. Also, purchase a can of of denatured alcohol at the hardware store. While you are there, buy four 64th inch high quality drill bits. Go around to the feed store and pick up a couple of small injection syringes from the horse doctoring department. If this is not possible, mooch them off of your pharmacist or someone giving himself injections. You will also need a drill motor as well-  hopefully one of the battery operated ones which runs slow and can be controlled.

By now, if you have read other sections in the book, you may be tempted to think that I put this book on the Web just to get you to order from my Catalogue, right?  That is true-  partly.  I do intend to do a bit of a mail order business, and I hope that some day the profits will make up for the fact that I did not sell this book to a print publisher-- I just GAVE it to you.

However; there is one other side to the Catalogue.  NO piano supply company will sell you parts.  Also, some tuners are very insulted if you ask them to order the parts for you.  They feel entitled to do all the repairs for you, even if the skill level for a given repair is "Age 7."  If I didn't make the Catalogue available to you, it would be cruel.  You could not, in many cases, get the materials to do the repair.  If you can get the parts or tools from your tuner, well there is a real gentleman.  Go for it.

Step One:

Lay the upright piano down on its back. You must have at least three men to do this, so that, if one man slips, the other two can keep control.  Be sure to put two eight foot 2 X 4s under it so that you can get your fingers under it to lift it back up later.

If you have a grand, rejoice. It is ready to dope. You might want to take the fall board (key cover) off and slip some cardboard in under the pin block. It is possible for a pin to be so loose that the treatment solution will drip on down below and get into the key levers. Not good.

Step Two:

Chuck a 64th inch drill bit in the drill motor. I want you to drill a hole, but you must drill this hole just right. The illustration is very important, and larger than usual. The object is to drill a hole through the wooden donut around the pin. Also, you MUST drill the hole on the opposite side of the pin from the wire departure.  The hole must go down at an angle so that you stop about three eights of an inch deep, and just at the point where the pin enters the pin block.

In The illustration , you can see the space created by years of wear and tension. It is opposite the direction of the wire and tension. The hole you are drilling will allow you to apply the pin treatment solution into the pin hole instead of just to the wooden donut. This is the secret of my method.

A few pianos do not have the wooden donut. In that case, skip the hole drilling and go straight to Step Three. Make sure you apply the liquid directly into the space we just discussed, and use the injection syringe.

Why all the fuss? When most tuners "dope" the pins, they get pin treatment all over the metal harp, and very little down the hole. The method I use is frightening, but it works far better. This method will get the treatment liquid down the pin hole to swell the wood of the pin block around the pin-- that's what you want.

The theory with pin treatment is to swell the wood around the tuning pin so that it grips the pin. If the right liquid is used, it will fill the wood, and when the carrier dries out, the wood will stay tightened to the steel pin. It works quite well if my method is used.

Step Three:

You have drilled a hole through every wooden donut for every wire that is loose. Do them all at once. If a lot of wires are loose, I suggest you do the whole piano. The reason for four 64th inch drill bits is because it is very easy to break those tiny drill bits. If one breaks off in a hole, just drill another hole near it with a new bit. Bit by bit, we'll get your piano playing again, eh? The holes may be hard to explain to your tuner, but we are trying to get real results, right? Furthermore; your tuner can have my method at no charge if he is nice about it.

Now, mix the treatment. Mix the liquid treatment half and half with denatured alcohol, and stir it well. I now supply another treatment which does not need to be mixed with alcohol. Do not add alcohol if the bottle does not call for it.

Now fill your injection syringe with the mixture. Poke the needle down one of the holes you drilled, and fill it with the liquid. Let it puddle a bit around the top of the wooden donut around the pin, but try not to run it onto the harp. It will make the harp look ugly and collect dust.

You will have to fill the syringe over and over, but patience is a virtue. One of those oversized horse syringes would be fine to use IF you can control it. That way you could do more pins per filling. Again, please file the tip of the syringe with a finger nail file so that it is blunt. If you accidentally stuck yourself, it could be a real hazard. Also, DO NOT leave the syringe laying around for kids to "play doctor."  If the piano is in the vacinity of a dope head, DO NOT leave the syringe where the fool can get ahold of it.  If he used it, he could really have a problem with the pin treatment left in the syringe.

Do each hole this way, then let them all sit for twenty minutes. Treat all of the pins at least twice. I like to do this three times to make sure the liquid has gotten well into the wood around the tuning pin.  Your treatment will go a long ways because you are getting it only in the pin holes.  The standard method leaves a horrid stain around the pin area and collects dirt later.  Also, the treatment does not go as far with that method.

Step Four:

Stand the piano up immediately, and let it sit for seven days. After that, you should go to the section called Tuning-- Do It Yourself a few pages back. Follow the instructions for getting a twang out of one wire.

Step Five:

You have plenty of pin treatment left over, right? Well, how about treating your uncle Harry's piano? And, how about the old klunker in the Sunday School room at church, or at the VFW? Make some points with your new found skill.

When you store the pin treatment, be sure the lid is tight, and wrap it with tape. It can be used for another treatment later. Also, write the brand name in pencil on the harp near the pins so that someone in the future can tell what you used.

Shim method of tightening tuning pins:

This method of tightening a tuning pin is more permanent, but it is a lot of work. There is also a risk of breaking a wire. It is important to follow instructions exactly.

Sand paper shims:

This is the method used by Baldwin in the factory when they accidentally drill a hole too big. It is very effective, but it requires some mechanical cleverness.

The only parts you will need is a sheet of "wet" 220 grit sandpaper. The night before you plan to make the repair, paint the back of the sandpaper sheet with clear lacquer or varnish.

Cut a section out of the sandpaper sheet about two inches by four inches. Next, cut several wedges out of the piece you cut out of the sheet. Cut them as in the illustration. Make them about three eighths of an inch at the top tapering to one quarter inch at the bottom.

Removing the loose pin:

For this step of the work you will need your tuning lever from the Catalogue in the back of the book.

First, you must remember that each wire makes a trip down and back up. It is connected to two tuning pins side by side. You must start with the tuning pin that is loose, and then follow the wire down to the bottom. It goes around an anchor pin, and comes back up to the pin next to the loose one. This may even be in the note next to the one with the loose pin. You can find an illustration of this principle in the section in this chapter called, Broken wire emergency with a Diagram of the wire pattern.

Now, with your tuning lever, you are going to loosen both of the tuning pins which are connected to the wire involved. The loose pin comes all the way out, while the other pin simply is loosened to let off the tension evenly. If you let off all of the tension on the loose pin only, the wire will creep around the anchor pin at the bottom of the harp, and when you tighten it, it will break.

Start loosening the two tuning pins in stages-- a little on each pin-- until you see the wire winding on the tuning pins beginning to open or loosen. DO NOT over loosen the tuning pins. This is old brittle wire and you could break the end of the wire where it goes into the hole in the tuning pin.

Once you have the winding opened up, push a small flat bit screw driver under the wire right where it bends and goes into the hole in the tuning pin. (Remember, DO NOT remove the wire from the pin which is not loose.) Try to pull the wire out of the hole. If it won't come, loosen the pin a little more, and try again. Once the end of the wire will come out of the hole, work the coil of wire carefully off of the top of the pin. DO NOT bend the wire. It is old and will break later if you kink it.

After you get the wire off of the pin, carefully pull it to the side so that you can remove the pin. Begin unscrewing the pin with your tuning lever. It will take a while because the threads on the tuning pin are very fine.

If you break a wire during this process, finish shimming the hole, then go to the section in this chapter of replacing a broken wire, and put a new wire on the pins. You can order the wire from me or from your helpful tuner.  See my Catalogue for instructions on how to order wire.

Now, look here, you are getting to nervous. This is not going to be the last time in your life you will have the opportunity to mess something up. It will work out in the end. It is time for a cup of tea and a little Bach to calm your nerves, right?

Shim the hole:

Get one of the sand paper wedges you cut. Kind of cup it a bit lengthways so that it fits the curve of the hole with the outside of the cupping toward the wood. Put the small end of the taper in the hole, and bottom the shim in the hole. BE SURE TO PUT THE SHIM SO THAT THE SAND OF THE SAND PAPER IS TOWARD THE WOOD PIN BLOCK! Leave about a quarter inch sticking out of the top of the hole, but be sure the shim doesn't turn up in the bottom of the hole.

Insert the tuning pin into the hole gently and wiggle it in as far as you can with your fingers, trying not to push the sandpaper into the hole.. As you begin turning in the tuning pin, if it cuts off the part hanging out of the hole, pull the pin out, and start over. Cut another wedge out of the paper you prepared. If you cut off the sand paper at the top as the pin starts down, and you proceed to screw in the pin, the pin will just push the wedge down into the bottom of the hole. Keep trying to screw the pin in without cutting off the top of the sand paper until you succeed.

Metal shims:

You have no choice in using the metal shim-- you must order a the shims in my Catalogue in the back of the book. Your tuner may be willing to sell you several. Go through all of the above procedures for the sand paper shim, but return to this spot when the hole is empty. Do not skip the cup of tea. Next, slip the metal sleeve into the hole. You may have to work at it a bit. Try to get it as deep as possible without bending it.  See the illustration of a metal shim.

Put the pin into the sleeve, and start screwing it in with your tuning lever. It may be hard to get in since the sleeve may be a bit bigger than needed. In that case, you will need a smaller tuning pin. Or, you can take the shim to your shop and cut off some of the metal lengthways with tin snips. DO NOT even think about drilling out the hole, OK? Send me the old pin, and I will send you a larger pin so that you can skip the metal shim and simply put a larger pin into the hole. Once you get it, install it without the metal shim. Follow the rest of these instructions for re-installing the pin.

If you intend to order a replacement larger pin, why not print out this page, mark this spot, and lay it on the piano.  This wasy, you can pick up where you left off without missing something.

Tuning pins are available from my Catalog.

Whether you use sandpaper, a shim, or a new pin, don't turn the pin in all the way. Leave it out about a quarter inch higher than the pins around it.

Position the tuning pin in the same way it was when you pulled the wire winding off of the tuning pin. Carefully replace the wire winding. With the screw driver again, work the end of the wire into the hole.

Start tightening the tuning pin again. The end of the winding will hang out of the hole. DO NOT keep going without helping the winding back into the hole all the way. Use a second tool to keep pushing it in until it stays. You may want to ask for help from a friend here to make sure the wire stays in the hole as you turn the pin in. Once the winding is tightening, tighten both pins of the wire again, alternating from one to the other to raise the tension evenly. Pluck the wire from both pins you are tightening, and pluck the ones next to it as you go to be sure you don't over tighten it. You will be able to hear if one is much higher tone than the other. Try to keep them the same as you tighten.

Tune the wires in each note beatless as described in "Tuning-- Touching up Twangs" elsewhere in this chapter. You may also follow directions in Appendix One on tuning.

New larger sized tuning pins:

First, send me a pin you want to replace. I will send you the next larger size pin. Follow the instructions earlier for putting in a sand paper shim. When you get to the point of putting in the shim, come here.  If the Mini Catalogue

Simply insert the new pin, and follow the pin re-installing instructions above for metal shims, but DO NOT put the metal shim in the hole.

Last Step:

Go back to the section in this chapter called, Tuning- For Do It Yourselfers. Follow the instructions there for getting rid of twangs. The only problem will be that your wires on the loose pin, and the other pin involved, will be way below the others in each note. Be very careful not to raise a wire above the others in the note where it is.  Pluck the two wires all the way along to hear when you are close, then follow instruction in the above link.

You have done one of those tasks which has heretofore belonged exclusively to the piano technician. I hope you appreciate the bucks you have saved. Also, it is very satisfying to know you have helped yourself. Now, you may have other pins which are a bit loose. Should you order parts now for that possibility? Just a thought.

Refinishing the Piano Cabinet

The key to a successful restoration is
patience and being very fussy.

You must NOT take any short cuts if you expect good results. If you have some mechanical ability, and if you are a bit of a perfectionist, you can get your old upright or grand piano back to show room condition-- or very close anyway.

I suggest you read other pages of this book to see what your piano offers in challenges and rewards. Read enough also to learn to think with me. I have a way of saying things that may be odd to you. I am taking pills for it, but you need to get my intentions clear as you read the following instructions. I get a lot of satisfaction out of helping people restore pianos. It is an art form as far as I am concerned.

There are four questions you must consider before you restore the piano:

Question One: Have you already had the musical part of the piano restored? If not, you are approaching the thing in reverse. Why do you want to restore the cabinet, only to later be told by a piano tuner to haul it to the dump? I have seen this happen. As I write, I am waiting for a customer to call whom I know has had the cabinet restored, and the inside works are a rattle trap. I shall have mercy on them and try to get the music back, but it may cost them far more than the beast is worth.

Question Two: Is there serious damage to the cabinet? Is veneer falling off? Has it had serious water damage in the past? If the thing is just ugly and black, and the varnish badly checked, don't worry-- it can probably be brought back. But, if it looks like a trash pile, you are wasting your life to go to all the work to restore the cabinet. You have many many hours of tedious work ahead of you. Start with a piano that has some promise. If it does not qualify, but it is playing pretty good, use it for you or your student, and start shopping for a better piano-- one worthy of restoration.

Make sure all the veneer is firmly attached. If the veneer on the ends of the lower bar, which holds the front casters, is damaged, that can be repaired. If veneer has worked loose, but it is all there, I will tell you later how to reattach it.

If there is scroll work on the desk, is it all there? If a little piece is missing, you can maybe match it by carefully removing the same piece on the other side. But if there is a lot of damage to the scroll work, go shopping for another piano to restore.

If it is a grand piano, are the lure, desk, and lid in good solid condition, and are they all there? You can tighten and restore them, but if they are broken up, you may have a hard time finding parts. We can usually find something to meet the need, but you should contact us before going on and starting the restoration. Grand lids can have ruptured wood at the hinges. This is very hard to repair. I have never even tried it. A grand desk which is falling apart is highly suspect. Can your friend the piano tuner repair the desk for you?

Also, check with a tuner to see if the brand of piano you have really has a good reputation. For example, if you first restore a Winter upright, then later inquire around to see what it is worth, you may be very sorry what you learn. Stick with old trusted names like Fischer, Ivers and Pond, Cable, Brinkerhof, Vose, and other really old uprights from around the 1910 to 1929 era. What fine pieces of workmanship, and what a great starting point. Ask your tuner what you have please. Of course, if you have a Steinway, Knabe, Boesendorfer, Beckstein, Chickering, or Kurtzmann, these are well known high quality pianos. You should not toss out one of these pianos without making a try at restoration.

Beware of pianos made after the 1929 crash. Many companies got into financial trouble, and they lowered work quality to survive. Ask a tuner / technician for an opinion. Consoles and spinets are suspect. They may make good practice pianos, but beware of a full restoration until you have a second opinion. I mentioned Winter above. Before they got into trouble financially they made good full sized upright. But, their later grands and consoles were pure trash. Fischer was an exceptional piano, but after Aeolian bought them out, they became deco junk. Anything with Aeolian on it is highly suspect.

Question Three: Are you prepared to paint it in the end rather than give it a natural finish? If there is no water damage, but you find that the finish has been damaged badly, you can strip it, fill the damaged wood with wood filler, sand it, and paint it. With a new decal on the name board, this can be very rewarding. I did two like this once, and it looked very good and got me a good price. One is seen above at the top of the page. Settle for off white or almond right now, unless you have a friend with a paint booth who can spray on black lacquer for you. BUT, you still MUST strip it to have the best results. Paint on top of paint looks terrible.

Question Four: Why are you restoring the piano? If it is a family heirloom, and you just have to have it back to perfection, that's a good reason. If you got it from a friend, it means very little to you, you have no budding pianist to inherit it, you are in for a let down. Try restoring an oak kitchen table of a hutch. When you are done, you will not have raised the value of this piano to cover the labor you put into it.

If you dream of making a fat profit, you have to go all the way back to showroom condition. That will cost something in some new parts which you will HAVE to buy through me or your tuner. Also, you are not "in the trade" like a piano tuner. Prospective buyers will NOT take you nearly as seriously as a tuner who can sell it out of a show room, deliver it, and tune it. You will NOT get the same price of the restored old upright you priced in the piano store on the mall. Having said that, I must admit that I have customers who have done this and come out ahead. But, it is usually best to be restoring a high end piano known for very good sound. And, you will have to restring it and possibly put in a new pin block. A piano tuner with a helpful attitude can do the pin block if you are willing to pay him properly.

So, you have decided you want to restore the piano, right? Well, take heart-- this can be one of your most rewarding projects ever. Here goes...

Step One: Dismantling:

Read Chapter Five all the way through. Note all of the instructions for dismantling your piano. Disassemble the piano as far as you can following the instructions in Chapter Five, then return to this point and proceed.

Now, we want to go on to take off more pieces. The more you dismantle the piano, the nicer it will look in the end. Take off the board in front of the keys (the key slip). It has four screws under it. On a grand it may be mounted on slotted screws and will just lift straight up, or it may be trapped under the end blocks which must come off first.

You may find a real silver dime behind that board. Did you take off the end blocks? You must! Take the top off of the piano. Send it in with $2.00, and we'll send you a Captain Marvel zapper gun. If the top has a hinge down the middle on your upright, remove the hinge. The top of an upright may be screwed down with two screws under the two rubber bumpers on the top. Pry the bumpers out of their holes to get at the screws. Polish the long hinge, spray varnish it, and do not replace it until after you have finished the piano. Some upright pianos have the back half of a hinged top glued on. Sorry, in that case you will have to strip and finish it in place.

For the grand piano, take off the lyre, the desk, and the top. Dismantle the lyre as much as possible. If it is loose, and doweled, parts are moving in their sockets, take it to a cabinet maker, and ask him to knock it apart, and restore it as he would furniture. If you know what I mean, do it yourself.

Take the legs off by the old Vivaldi bribe method mentioned so often in this book. Call three of your friends who are sturdy fellows, and promise them pizza. Have on hand two VERY STRONG saw horses or some cinder blocks and a couple of planks. Have your three friends lift the piano while you bridge up under it. With the ends of the piano legs a minimum of six inches off of the floor, you can then remove the legs and lyre very easily.

WARNING: If you do this with the grand piano, YOU are the one who must be sure that the piano is safe as it sits there. If you have children, be sure the bridging up method is very secure.  When you remove the three legs, check the metal mounting plates if it has them.  Tighten the screws.  If they are stripped, add wood pieces and Elmer's carpenter's glue into the screw holes (half fill them), and replace the screws.

Do not lose any of the grand piano lyre rods please. Remove the pedals from the pedal box. They will need to be rechromed or new ones used when you reassemble the piano. If you rechrome parts, make sure the people doing it plate with copper before adding the chrome finish. You can rechrome the hinges also. Take the casters off the legs and the ferrules if possible so you can clean them up and buff the brass. Varnish the brass parts with a top quality clear varnish-- very thin coat-- no runs or drips. Make sure to remove all polish before varnishing, and buff the brass well. Wipe all brass off with a solvent and do not touch the brass before spraying in. Your fingers have body acid on them in tiny quantities, and a finger print can cause tarnish later. Restoration of the grand top follows all the steps you will find below, but please realize that your best work must be on the top, for everyone will examine it. Do it after doing the sides and the back.

If the upright has two or three hinges at the back of the top, take them off and polish and spray varnish them. You can order new ones from my Online Catalog also.  Needless to say, you better be very careful to keep all screws and bits and pieces stored so that you cannot lose them.

Next, take off the two side pieces that held the desk on the upright, if that is how your piano is made. If there are two ornamental half pillars, down below and against the lower front of the cabinet, which compliment the pillars coming up from the front casters, take them off by removing the screws inside the lower box. The two pillars themselves can come off for better results, but you will most likely need to lay the upright down, remove the front casters, and take a screw out of the bottom of the pillar which is found under the caster. The top screw us usually under the end block.

While you are down there, check the two horizontal bars at either end, in the lower corners, which come from inside the piano forward to hold the front casters.  Are they tight?  If not, can you tighten them with screws? If not, is there serious damage? Yes? You will need to glue them back into place. Remove all the animal hide glue, and use large quantities of Elmer's carpenter's glue to glue them back in place. You will have to brace them while they dry so that they are tight into the corners of the cabinet. They can be bolted to the bottom skid board, but this is unconventional.

I hope you are combining instructions from Chapter Five with these instructions!  Now, take the hinge off of the key cover of the upright and the grand if it applies, and take out the lock hardware and any metal end fittings. If the keyhole brass escutcheon is missing, order one from my Online Catalog. Take all of the brass or nickel plated parts off, and buff and spray varnish them.

Remove all the old rubber bumpers. On many old uprights, all that is left of the rubber bumpers is the metal tack head. Carefully work this tack head out with a tool without damaging the wood. Patience! Remove the wooden knobs from the key cover and desk. If they are missing, order at once from my Catalog or your tuner. Order rubber bumpers while you are at it.  Remove all felt trim on the outside of the cabinet.. You will want new felt which we supply in our catalog.

Now take the pedals out of the upright piano. Look elsewhere in this section for Repair of the Pedals and their hardware. If the pedals are nickel plated, they probably have a worn spot, and they may be rusted. If they are otherwise still in good condition, can you send them to a chrome plating shop? If you can, I suggest you do so. Chrome looks "whiter" than nickel plate, and is harder.  Be sure to include the toe plate if you have the pedals chrome plated.  

If you cannot find a plating shop, send for a new set of pedals from my Online Catalog, Upright pedals and Grand pedals. There are differences in pedals for various pianos! Be sure the ones you order are right for your piano. Measure from the horn to the hinge pin especially. If your pedals are brass, that is great. Just clean them up with Brasso. DO NOT buff them with steel wool. You can spray varnish them to prevent tarnishing.

Check the casters. If they are ugly, bent, and sticking, this is a great time to replace them. If they are the old cast iron casters, they are very prone to damage all floors. You should consider the double rubber wheeled casters we sell. They will not scratch tile and score floor covering when you next move the piano. They "trail" better also. To put them in, lay the piano on its back. DO NOT try to tip it up and insert them from beneath, unless that is, you are very well insured. See the section called, Casters- Replacing and servicing in this chapter for more instructions for caster installing. You can order them from my Online Catalog in the back of this book, or call you tuner. DO NOT order them from a hardware store. They will vastly overcharge you for them, and they may sell you non-piano casters.  That will lift your piano too high for normal pedal use, and it will look really klunky to anyone aware of the trade.

If the piano is very old, it may have ornamental picture frame inserts in the desk and in the lower board. Take these inserts out, and treat them separately. You may want to cover them with black or maroon velvet, especially if the inserts are damaged. This was done in the 1800s, and it can add a classy touch. It is a very legitimate option. I like it myself.

If you have a Fischer, Wegman, or other Austrian style upright, it will have a "drop out" desk. Dismantle the whole thing, since it will most certainly need some small repairs, and it will look much better detailed outside of the front piece.

Step Two:  Stripping off the old finish:

STRIPPING:  

You begin with the finish. Lousy pun, right? I am a Hollander, and you will just have to put up with these puns. Besides, you look too serious right now. Loosen up a bit, OK?

The first step in stripping is in the proper use of the stripper. Any stripper from an established company will do just fine, but I insist that you find one that is not water based. You will also need a medium width putty knife or blade type item to scrape off the stripper. Add gloves for sure. This stuff will stain your hands bad, and some strippers are pretty caustic.

The trick with stripper is, stroke it on with a brush in a medium heavy layer, and DO NOT "paint it in." In other words, don't stroke back over your first pass. Don't ask me why, but brushing it in will cause it to fail about 50%. Let the stripper sit on the wood at least as long as the instructions on the can require, but not a lot longer either. You don't want it to dry out. If you work outside, try to avoid direct sunlight to prevent drying too fast, but also avoid high humidity days.

When you scrape off the stripper, use a putty knife to take up sections of the mixture. BUT, be sure you are going in the direction in which the grain of the veneer is falling away. In other words, you don't want to stroke against the grain. This is pretty hard to determine, so get close to the wood, and look deep into the veneer from several angles to be sure of yourself. If you stroke against the grain, you can pick up an imperfection in the wood, and you can lift a long piece of veneer right out of the wood.

Try to hold the putty knife almost level with the surface as you lift off the stripper. If you get a high angle going, the putty knife can suddenly start chattering, and the result will be chatter marks in the veneer which have to be sanded out. If you are careful, you will not have to do any repair to the veneer after this whole process.

Don't get the stripper which you are removing on a good floor. It stains very badly, and it is nearly impossible to remove. If you have to do the piano in your home, you need to cover the whole area under the piano with heavy plastic. Beware of tracking the stuff around the house.

You may have to do the stripping process two or three times. Rather than putting on one very heavy coat of stripper, do more than one treatment. You will have better results.

To get varnish out of crevices and scroll work, use a tooth brush to scrub in the stripper, and the same to remove it by rolling it out of the crevices. If you started with an old upright which was painted two or three times with 1950s puke green paint, you have many applications of stripper ahead of you. Just use caution as you get down to the veneer itself. You will get impatient with the many applications, and you might get careless as you get to the wood surface. That will result in damage.

The graphic at the left shows a piano which was "antiqued" probably during the 1950s. This process resulted in a very ugly piece of furniture. Of course, the 50s was an era of weird things, right? That was when we wore pink and black-- us guys even. And, all the girls ran around eating celery and with a transistor radio hanging in their ear. The musical classics included Harry the Hairy Ape and The Purple People Eater. Ugh.

If someone stripped and then painted your piano, you really ought to do the same again, and paint it. You will never get all of the paint out of the wood grain without destroying the veneer. Usually though, you will find that they painted over the old varnish, and you can get it all off just fine. There is a wonderful one-coat product which other tuners tell me works well. I am not familiar with it, so you should ask around before experimenting.  Call Pat Summerall-- he sells all sorts of goo for some harware store. 

On the right, you see the end result of stripping off the baby poop green on the old beast on the left. So, you see, it can be done. Don't give up to easily :-) This piano was done by a customer of ours: Ed Greenwell, Director of TN Projects American Chestnut Cooperators' Foundation in Cooksville, Tennessee, which is just down the road from the McCoys and the Hatfields, who are two very real families with an attitude. Ed Reports:

Here are a couple of pictures of our $50 garage sale piano. It is a 1918 Lexington player with the player works removed about 40 years ago. This Lexington was manufactured by Conway, a subsidiary of Hallet & Davis. The butterfly veneer is Mahagony and is veneered onto American Chestnut.

This trick of using two kinds of wood is really old world workmanship. I love it, but it has gone out of style in modern times. Mahogany is one of the most rewarding woods to work with. Just be sure to lift out some of the added stain, as I discuss later.

Do NOT sand the surface.

Please do all the way around the edges of flat pieces you restore. Do the inside of the top of uprights, and, of course, the under side of the grand lid. It is ugly to lift the top of a piano and see dribbles of stripper that ran under the edges. Of course, you will have to take the top off the grand piano, and if possible off the upright to do perfect work. When doing the edges, be very careful. Those are not the end grain on the base wood. Old uprights and grands have immaculate veneer work, and you must be very careful not to lift the grain in the end veneer or along the corners as you take it off with the putty knife.

SOLVENT CLEANSING:

The second major part of the stripping process now starts. Make a 50%-50% mixture of denatured alcohol and lacquer thinner. This is dangerous around flames, so avoid hazard in that respect. Keep your cigar smoking uncle OURSIDE if you are using this mixture. Alcohol often has no color to the flame when it burns. DO NOT use rubbing alcohol! Read that last sentence again please. Denatured alcohol is sometimes called solvent alcohol.

Have two rolls of paper towels on hand (plain, NOT printed), and get a couple of bags of 0000 steel wool from the hardware store. Some steel wool should be left over for the next step. Dip a pad of steel wool into the solution you made, and puddle it onto the surface of the wood. Try to have the surface level. With the main cabinet, this step is tricky since you have to get the surface pretty wet. Be sure you cover the floor to keep from staining it.

Be very careful if you decide to strip a grand piano all the way into the inside of the cabinet. Any stripper you drip on the harp will remove the gold paint. Mask it off if you are in doubt, and be alert. This world needs more lerts, right? Sometimes the inside of the grand piano cabinet has a light wood veneer, such as maple. If it is still looking good, you may opt to buff it with 0000 steel wool and hand rub on a coat or two of tung oil. If you are removing the strings and the harp to paint it, strip the inside of the cabinet and the sound board all at once. Work from the top of the rim downward to pick up all your spills as you progress. Do not do the sound board with the denatured alcohol and lacquer thinner. Hand sand it with very fine sand paper after stripping it. Finally, buff it with 0000 steel wool until is shines before adding a finish. Do not overdo the sanding of the sound board. It is only 5/8 inch thick. If you wish to fill cracks in the sound board, SEND MAIL to learn the tools and technique for doing this.

After you puddle an area with the solvent, scrub it with pressure and slow strokes. You want to lift the last of the varnish out of the wood. Your steel wool will also be polishing the surface through the solvent. Scrub for a while, but do not keep this up until the area is starting to dry. As you see the solvent is starting to dry away, use the paper towels in your other hand to wipe up the solvent. Do this in almost a panic fashion. See how much you can pick up very quickly with the paper towels- broad sweeping strokes. Also, see if you can bang your elbow in the process.

You will have to do this process over and over. After each pass with the solvent and paper towels, the surface will completely dry up. Look deep into the veneer. No, you will not see guru Maharishi, but you will see shadows or clouds here and there. Lest you go weird on us, this is serious-- that is varnish you have not yet lifted out. You MUST remove it all to get perfection. Since there is no water in the mixture you are using, you will not damage the wood, and it should not lift grain.

With mahogany pianos you will also be lifting out muddy red stain. Piano factories, due to Victorian notions, added this red stain at the turn of the century because people wanted mahogany blood red. Get all the stain out that you can. The natural wood is very beautiful.

Again, repeat this step over and over until all clouds are gone. You will have to use fine tools and tooth brushes to get the varnish out of the grooves in ginger bread or scroll work, but do it. A sure sign of amateur work is to see a line of old black varnish in the creases and crevices of the scroll work. Please take the time to pick out every bit of the old varnish. I mean, if you don't, I may have to send the boys around and "busta you knuckles, huh?"

Strip the name decal off.  You can order a new one from my Online Catalogue, and I give instructions how to put the new one on in Decal Application.  However, and I give you this in caps, TAKE A DIGITAL PICTURE OF THE DECAL BEFORE YOU STROP IT OFF. We may need this in order to match your decal perfectly. Please replace the decal. Do not strip around it and leave an ugly patch of old varnish and aged decal. Personally, if the decal is not available, I would still strip off the decal. I hate the look of an old grungy decal right there in the middle of the fall board.

Do not strip the inside of the upper sides of the box in an upright if it is veneered. There is usually no way to do it part way down and make the stopping point look nice. Also, try not to dribble stripper down over this wood. If inside wood veneer is bird's eye maple, clean it and polish it with lemon oil after the whole restoration process. Do not be tempted to use solvents or solutions to clean up the tuning pin area. Read that sentence again please!

BUFF, BUFF, BUFF:

The third step in stripping is buffing the surface. Get 0000 steel wool for this purpose. Buff the dry veneer and all areas you intend to re-finish. Buff and buff in long steady strokes with moderate pressure. Buff until you can't stand it anymore. Use NOTHING but 0000 steel wool. NO sand paper. It is possible to buff all the way through the veneer and spoil it. Use some common sense here. DO NOT USE POWER TOOLS ON ANY OF THE STRIPPING PROCESS.  You are done buffing when the wood shines with a near furniture finish. If you never got water on the wood, you may be surprised to find that the wood shines very easily, and little buffing will be needed.  When you put the final finish on this surface, you may have a better finish than the manufacturer had.

Perfectionists:  You can go around to a cabinet shop, and ask the owner for some wood chips of the same kind as the wood used for your veneer.  Buff the veneer with these wood chips.  This will insure that, if any bits of the wood get into the veneer and you varnish over them, they will disappear into the background.  Purists tell me that steel wool bits can be left behind, and they can sparkle later after the finish is on.  I use steel wool, and I have never seen this happen, but then, you perfectionists may like this touch. 

Lastly, dampen a couple of paper towels with denatured alcohol only, and wipe off all of your buffing dust. Do this without wetting the wood heavily. Whatever you do, DO NOT use rubbing alcohol for this work. It is partly water, and it will lift the grain. Disobey this instruction, and you deserve all the trouble you get.

As with all paint work and furniture finishing, preparation of the surface is about 80% of the work. If you take your time with this step, the final finish will be very rewarding.

If you are not sure you have perfection, call a cabinet maker to come and look at your results, and ask him to be critical. He will show you anything you need to improve.

If you are a perfectionist, this will be one of your most rewarding projects of a whole life time. The old piano companies of long ago used the best quarter cut hardwood veneer that could be found, and they put it on with insane perfectionism. In old uprights, all of the veneer and finish wood pieces came from the same tree. Old uprights and grands are a very rewarding base from which to start toward masterful end results. The key word here is, as you guessed, PATIENCE. You just cannot hurry this kind of work.

Step Three: Repairing the surface and veneer:

Veneer Repair:

If you have veneer damage, do not panic-- go to the topic of Veneer. You will learn how to make the repair you need. Be sure to do this before you do the buffing process, or Step Two above.

Whatever repair you do on the veneer, you must remember that veneer is very high quality wood, but IT IS VERY THIN. NEVER USE POWER TOOLS ON THE SURFACE OF A PIANO. I have seen pianos that had a real future for restoration, but some poor soul took a belt sander to the thing, and that sander went right through the veneer instantly. You better do what I tell you here, OK?

Also, you DO have veneer. I don't care how convinced you are that your piano is solid walnut-- no such thing ever existed. In fact, walnut would be terrible as a base wood for a piano. There have been some old oak pianos which had a lot of solid wood, but even there, don't assume this in order to be safe. On recent pianos, say since about 1955, a lot more solid wood was used in order to lower the cost caused by veneering. Consoles and spinets almost all have solid wood.

If, after you strip the piano, you see that the veneer is badly broken, and pieces are missing, I suggest you go ahead and glue the veneer back as below, but fill the bad places with Weldwood. Sand the Weldwood repairs, and paint the piano. It will look better in the end. Otherwise, you will spend the rest of your life trying to hide the end with the disgusting veneer.

If the veneer is loose, you will want to glue it back before you strip the old finish off. Use a long blade to apply Elmer's carpenter's glue under the veneer. Get a pretty generous application of the glue.

The trick in this operation is to clamp the veneer flat. Bungie straps, long strips on inner tube rubber, and cord can be used. We sell some huge rubber bands which can be used to hold veneer on the piano. Veneer on the ends is most easily clamped by upending the piano on a flat floor, but this is dangerous. Have plenty of help.

If you can't get it real tight, before you glue it, try the following: 1. A supply of wood screen molding. 2. Some smallish finishing nails. 3. Pieces of cardboard. Check out the Diagrams. Cut the screen molding into lengths which will more than cover the area you want to glue. After gluing the veneer down, tack the veneer to the piano by driving the finishing nails through about four layers of the cardboard and the screen molding.

This sounds terrible, but after the veneer dries, you can pick the cardboard away from the nails, and you can pull the nails with pliers or a claw hammer, rocking the claw hammer on the screen molding. The holes from the nails can be filled with carpenter's wax pencil of the color of the veneer. Find it at your hardware store. I did this once, and the results were very good, Nobody could see the nail holes.

The front ends of the lower bar that holds the front casters are often ruined. This is usually done while moving the piano. Go to a wood specialty store, and buy a piece of veneer to match your piano. Strip one of the end blocks at the right or left end of the piano keys, and strip and buff it as in the directions above with the steel wool, but do not add the finish coat. Take it along to match the veneer repair piece.

Get down on the floor with a good ruler, and measure the end of the lower bar. With a small square, draw a picture of the piece you need on the veneer you bought. Use a pencil. Next, find the best set of sheers you can to cut the veneer. If you can get away with it, your wife's sewing sheers will be the best.

When you cut the veneer, you HAVE to cut away from the grain. If you cut against it, the sheers will try to follow the grain. Cut the piece just a little bit bigger than the area you want to cover.

Glue the piece onto the end with the Elmer's carpenter's glue. DO NOT dress the edges of it until after it dries. To clamp it on, you can run bungies and our monster rubber bands around back of the piano and from inside the lower box. Cut a block of wood just a bit larger than the veneer piece to place against the veneer, and run the straps around front to the block of wood.  Do not use the wood strips and nails as above.

Again, Check out the Diagrams.  After the piece dries, dress the edges with fine sand paper on a wood block or with a fine toothed file. Again, you MUST sand away from the grain of the wood. Slightly bevel the edge and corner, as in the illustration, so that folks won't snag the veneer with their feet or clothing.

As I suggested earlier, if a piece of scroll work is damaged on the desk, see if you can take off a corresponding piece on the opposite end of the pattern. If not, it is very hard to fill it and make it look good. An old timer cabinet maker could do it, but the pizza bribe may have to be exalted to a steak dinner for two.

Gouges and burns in the veneer are a real problem. They can be filled with lacquer stick, but the task is an art form. We can supply the lacquer sticks, and you should SEND MAIL for instructions on how to do this.  

Stains:

Water stains are nearly always right on top of the piano. Wherever they are, buy some stain that matches your veneer at the hardware store. AFTER you have stripped the surface, strain the water mark. With a cotton swab, carefully paint only the area of the stain. Take your time. You might want to only slightly stir the stain so that you are not getting too heavy a dose with each application. Let it dry and buff off the excess with steel wool, and give it another coat if needed. Be sure to let the piano sit for a good period of time before applying the finish so that the stain carrier has dried out of the wood.

Step Four:  Applying the new finish:

This step is much neater and dignified than the previous steps. If you have done good work in preparation, putting on a finish will make you feel like an artist.

Be sure you DO NOT try to do any re-assembly before putting on the finish. Also, make sure you have a dust free work area. If you live on a dusty road, you MUST wait until the wind is blowing away from your home, or after a rain. If you work outside, spray down the lawn around the work area before you start refinishing. The best time to re-finish the piano is in the winter when the ground is covered with snow and the inside of the house is dry-- working INSIDE of course.

You folks in the Southeast will have to be sure you have a dry day. Fat chance, right? Humidity will fog a surface, and even if it doesn't, each coat of finish can take up to three days to be really dry. All that time, any dust or cat hair that makes it onto the surface is there to stay. If you use tung oil, you can buff down any such junk, and add another coat.

If you have a friend with a paint booth, you might want to haul the piano there, and pay him to spray it for you. You can even put on black lacquer in that case. NEVER try to put on lacquer in a garage or in your home. It is the hardest finish to get right.

I use Tung oil. Also, please use the best product, which is Formby's Tung oil. That old rascal has some secret formula, and it is the least troublesome of all the brands. Also, hey, are you going to do as I say???? Get the GLOSS tung oil. You will say, "Oh no, I want a satin finish." Right, you are going to get one, if ye faint not. With the GLOSS stuff you put on a coat, then take a look at it. The first coat will disappear anyway. Then you go on to add coats until you have a satin look, and you stop adding coats. Some pieces of the piano will need more coats than others in order to match all the parts of the piano. Just do as I say.

CAUTION:  Do NOT apply the tung oil if it is below room temperature.  Also, the wood you are applying the tung oil to must be at room temperature.  If the tung oil is cold it may be too thick and not dry for some time.  Again, do not apply the tung oil if the day is very humid.  Mid winter with the heat up is the ideal time.  Beware of wood stoves-- they put a fine ask into the air which cannot be seen, but it could slightly cloud the tung oil.  If you get into trouble with the tung oil you can call the Formby's people and get counsel.  They may tell you not to apply tung oil to veneer. Don't believe it. I have done it many times, and so have others.  Just don't put it on too heavy at first.

Try to keep your work pieces in a level position. Now here is the trick with tung oil-- you'll love it. You put it on with your hands-- NO GLOVES. It won't hurt you. It is made of nut oils, and that will suit YOU just fine, right? :-)

Enjoy! Dribble a little, not a lot, onto the palm of your hand. Turn your palm down on an area to be coated, and start rubbing it in. Cover the area evenly, spreading the tung oil as far as it will go, and DO NOT leave puddled effects. Rub and rub. Rub and rub some more. Rub until your hand starts getting warm from friction. That helps the tung oil to "set up." When your palm is good and warm, and your are feeling the drag increase, get off of it.

Yes, I know it doesn't shine. That's OK. It won't ever shine just as you quit rubbing. Go have a cup of coffee. If it is a dry day, the surface will dry in as little as a half hour. Now, look at it. Isn't that beautiful? Wow! What wood. I like this because you, the artist, are working with the Divine artist, God, who gave you that piece of wood to glorify. I feel sorry for these nut cases who think that creating beauty out of a piece of wood is murdering a tree.

Well, the first coat really didn't make it shine at all, right? Be sure the surface is totally dry, even if you have to wait three days, then give it another coat. With tung oil you can put on coat after coat until you have the wet look of Chinese lacquered bowls. Why? Because that is exactly the process you are using.

To get in the crevices of the scroll work, use a soft bristled tooth brush-- NEW one please. Work tung oil into the recesses, then rub it out as much as possible with your wee fingers. Try to avoid the gloopy puddled look. I told you in the front of the book that we would use hill billy technical terms, right?

Between each coat, the surface needs to be rubbed. The first coat can be rubbed out with the finest sand paper you can find, or you can use the 0000 steel wool. Don't do a lot of rubbing-- just take off any rough prickles. This is not like rubbing out car paint. Be sure to wipe down with a lint free paper towel just barely damp with denatured alcohol.

Before the last coat, I want you to use wood shavings, but the surface MUST be dry as a bone. Get the wood shavings from your cabinet maker friend, and try for shavings of the same wood you have for veneer.  If you can't do this, don't rub it out at all-- go on to put on the last coat.

Clouds:

If for some reason the tung oil clouds, let it dry for several days. If that doesn't help, buff the cloud out with 0000 steel wool, and give it another coat. You may have left some of the old finish in the veneer which is having an argument with the tung oil. I have a new product to be posted soon in the Online Catalog which is supposed to take out these clouds-- watch for it.

Decal:

To put on the decal (which you ordered from my Catalog) turn to Name Decal Application earlier in this Table of Contents, and read it all. One note though which is not in that section-- apply the decal when the surface is dry to the touch but still a bit fresh. The decal will stick better. After you put on the decal, use a fine bristled soft artist's brush, and wipe over the decal with tung oil. Do not work hard at it or rub it with your hand, or the decal may lift. Feather the tung oil away from the decal area, NOT touching the decal, but using your fingers. This removes the puddle-edged effect. If the decal lifts and breaks, you must let everything dry for days, and buff it off with 0000 steel wool, and start over. By the grace of God, I have never had to do that.

Step Five: Re-assembling the piano:

Reassembling the piano is now very different from when you took it apart, right? You are going to take your time and do NO scratching. Be sure the parts are very dry before you reassemble. You don't want to leave finger prints, and tacky tung oil will glue the pieces together-- This is not good!

Read the section on dismantling the piano in Chapter Five, and reverse the process. Be sure to glue (if you don't have self-sticking) the new red nameboard felt strip on the key cover before you put it in place. It should show out from under the edge of the key cover about one eighth of an inch but not quite touching the back of the sharps.

Also, order a piece of felt for lining the holes the pedals go through. Cut a piece of your this felt an inch wide and long enough to run around the inside three sides of the hole for each pedal. Glue this with Elmer's Carpenter's glue to the sides and top of the hole, letting it protrude about an eighth of an inch. Do all of the pedal holes. Dark green seems to be traditional here, but red matches other felt on most pianos.

With grands, have a friend or two on hand to help you put the top on. It is just too easy to lose control alone. Also, have Harry hold the lyre up while you set the screws and rods.

Put the rubber bumpers on last (see below), and take your time. You can order new rubber bumpers and knobs in the Online Catalog. Don't be nervous when you hammer them into place. Don't hit your fingers. Hold your tongue right, Don't let anyone watch.

Put your new wooden knobs in.  If the wooden knob screw holes are worn, add toothpicks and Elmer's glue.

You Elmer's people owe me a couple of steak dinners for all the times I've recommended your glue :-)

The last step in this whole process is to threaten the kids if they ever scratch the piano. Again, bribe them with pizza or chocolate if they do right. Give them a lesson in touching the keys rather than pounding them.

You could then celebrate, and call the friends together for a Gospel sing. Don't wash all the stain off of your fingers. That way, your friends will ask what is wrong with your hands. HA, you can then take them and show them the piano. Humbly, of course.

What next? The piano stool of course, then the closet doors, and on through the house. Restoration is addictive. Be careful.

CAUTION:

All of those rags and scrubbers you have been using have volatile solvents in them. Be sure to dispose of them properly so that you don't get spontaneous combustion. I saw it happen once. You can't imagine how it feels to grab a waste basket roaring with fire and try to get outdoors with it without burning off your eyebrows.

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