Many things are taken into account when restoring a piano, whether an upright or grand piano.
Does your piano need to be restored or reconditioned?
Is my money better spent on buying a new or reconditioned piano.?
The age and make of the piano?
How well constructed is the piano?
A detail review of each piano is carried out to ascertain the quality of the instrument. The following aspects are reviewed:
- Touch and tone
- Quality of the soundboard and bridges, has the soundboard got split, has it lost in crown, do the bridges need capping.
- Tightness of tuning pins and condition of strings and Agraffes
- The movement of the action including the condition of hammers, felts, leathers, springs, roller
- Keyboard, the condition of the ivory key bushing, Key bed and felts condition of the pins
- Casework, the condition of the veneers whether the piano has been in direct sun light
The model and the age of the piano are also important details. This can help decide whether the instrument is likely to be of value once restoration work has been carried out.
It is important to consider the value of the instrument to yourself before carrying out significant restoration work.
Leading models such as Bechstein, Bluthner, Steinway, Bosendorfer, Rich Lipp, Broadwood, Chappell, Welmar and many more can be beautiful instruments.
You may decide that purchasing a piano that is already fully restored a good alternative option.
Piano Servicing and Maintenance
In some cases the piano will only require tuning and regulation work, as the piano is played the tone of the piano will start to lose it edge, shaping of the hammers and toning work is required. This will keep your piano sounding excellent.
The older the piano it is more that likely to need a full assessment of the mechanics and in some cases the piano will need to come into a workshop to be restored.
It is recommended that the mechanical parts of a piano are serviced every 5 years, which would consist of the following:
- The piano is cleaned out, including the soundboard and strings.
- Action and keyboard will be removed from the piano and cleaned.
- Hammers are re-faced and aligned to strings. They are then toned, and the action regulated.
- Keys are removed and the key bed cleaned, key pins are also polished.
- The pedal structure is stripped down and dry lubricated, re-assembled and then regulated.
- A full inspection of the piano is carried out, to make sure there are no signs of moth and long term damage to the piano.
Piano Restoration
Restoration can include the above and many more important aspects, such as
- soundboard shimming,
- major casework repair,
- changing hammers and hammer shanks,
- action re-felting,
- fitting of new key check leathers.
I have experience in all area of the restoring process.
All makes of piano including Steinway, Bechstein, and Bluthner Rich Lipp, Chappell, Challen and Broadwood upright or grand.
Below are the different aspects of the restoration process which a piano go through.
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Keys / Keyboard As a rule where-ever possible the ivory is preserved. Repairs can be done and chip Ivory are replaced with a good matching ivory making sure that the joint is perfect. If the ivory is yellow then the ivory will need to be scrapped and then polished on a buffing wheel.
Touch There are three things which as a technician I take into account, the way in which the action responses, the smoothness, and looking very closely at how tight or lose centered the action and the regulation of the dampers are. I look very closely at the down-weight and the return weight.
Toning / Voicing This part of the process is highly skilled and I only recommended a qualified tuner/technician undertake this part of the job, as when toning hammers there is a risk of doing more harm than good.
It is important that each hammer is given the right tension depth it needs so that the felt rebounds off the strings at the correct speed. This is very important, and a qualified technician should be able to set this tension correctly.
The hammer is then fine voiced. On grand pianos, the “una corda" or soft pedal is toned too for a mellower tone when the soft pedal is used.
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Hammers The hammer can become soft and badly worn and lose their bounce, sometimes the hammers can also lose their shape, which can result in a loss of tone. Fitting a new hammer is the best way to obtain the best result, although in some cases recovering the existing hammer head is used too. When new hammers are fitted they need to be aligned to the strings, making sure the hammer hits all three string correctly. Once the hammers are all aligned, the piano is then fine tuned and is ready for the toning process. |
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Strings / Tuning Pins Depending on the condition of the soundboard and the tuning pins the strings are normally in serviceable order and don’t need to be replaced. But when the piano is in poor condition and the soundboard is split, the tuning pins are loose and the strings are all rusty, it is better to replace these parts or in some cases the piano itself. When repairing soundboards I use shims which are made from a soundboard from the same year of manufacture as the piano being restored. |
Polishing
Polishing is an important part of restoring a piano to it's full grandeur. Please feel free to enquire about possibilities and costs of repolishing your piano, or having it done at the same time as another restoration process.
These are some of the areas I cover...
Abingdon, Amersham, Ascot, Aylesbury, Birmingham, Banbury, Berkshire, Bicester, Buckingham, Buckinghamshire, Burford, Birmingham, Chipping Norton, Coventry, Dorchester, Drayton, Forest Hill, Goring, Great Milton, Hambledon, Hampshire, Harpenden, Hartley Witney, Heathfield, Leamington Spa, Leicester, Central London, West London, North London, South London, Maidenhead, Marlow, Meon Valley, Milton, Newbury, Northampton, Northants, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Petersfield, Portsmouth, Reading, Solihull, Southampton, Southsea, Surbiton, Surrey, Stratford on Avon, Tangmere, Thame, Titchfield, Tring, Twickenham, Twyford, Wallingford, Wokingham,Wantage, Warwick, Wendover, Windsor, Witney, and Woodstock. |