Upright Piano Repair
Posted by Dave Eddy on Nov 02 2016 - tags: diyI found this piano on Craigslist for free, as the owner was moving from NY to Florida. I hired piano movers to transport it to my house, and from there I ventured onto trying to fix it myself. Most of the keys were chipped and needed to be re-topped, and about 5 of the keys did nothing when pressed (didn’t play).
I managed to fix most of the issues, but there is still some weirdness with the piano where I will need to hire a professional to come fix it fully.
All of the parts I ordered were from Howard Piano Industries
All of the front pieces of the piano, as well as the action, completely removed.
Close up shot to see how damaged some of the keys actually were
The action laying down gracefully on my table
The action standing upright on my bench
I decided to fix the problems with the action first. Some of the hammers were broken or just missing, or some if the pieces were split and needed to be replaced and reglued. Fixing these issues would make it so every key would actually hit a string when struck.
Replacing the Flange
I custom ordered the Jack and the Jack Flange so they came already assembled.
Assembling the replacement hammer assembly with:
While all those pieces set, I removed the keys and started to work on replacing the tops on them. Here’s the piano with the keys removed.
Instead of trying to pry each keytop off of the key by hand or with a chisel or screw driver, I just took them out to my table saw and shaved them right off.
Here’s a before and after shot (in this case an after and before shot). The key on the left needs its old top removed, while the key on the right has the top already shaved off thanks to the table saw.
The keys lined up on the ground waiting to have the new tops installed. The key all the way to the right has its new top installed for reference.
All of the new key toppers installed - this process took hours!
The new keys look great!