I discussed my interest in the craft with my friend and tuner/technician, Dick Day, of Marshall, Michigan.  Then began my education in February of 2001 through a correspondence course.  By May, I was practicing and offered free tuning of pianos for friends and relatives here in Indiana.  This resulted in referrals to paying customers by August.  In September, I received a call from a piano owner who needed two strings replaced in a Schumann 7-foot grand, along with a tuning.  That family also had a Walter Console, and a brother next door had another console that needed to be tuned.

As I continued to build a customer base, I knew that I needed to take on a project that would allow me to learn a multitude of  techniques and tasks in a relatively short span of time, rather than wait for the occasional repair job to come along over a longer period of time.

In May of 2002, I began to search the daily classified advertisements for a grand piano that I could buy and use for my summer rebuild project.  On July 2, an advertisement for a Starr 5-foot Grand was listed for $300.  I called the owner, who said she just wanted it out of the home to make way for an organ left to her by her mother.  I purchased the piano that evening and had it moved to my residence in Goshen, Indiana, on July 5.  I was now ready for my hands-on project.  Since this would not be a customer's piano, I would have the opportunity to perform some of the tasks many times over.  There would be no specific timetable to meet, as long as I got it finished before the snowfalls, since I would be working in my garage.  If I messed up on something, I could start over; if I ran against a wall and my library of books and manuals couldn't satisfy the need for an answer, I could go to the PTG list and ask for help.

There was an opportunity to make a tool which was a real savings while leveling the naturals and sharps.  At the time I didn't want to spend any more on tools, so I came up with a replacement  tool, which I want to share with all.
 
 
 

 The lead weights used to hang on the backchecks while leveling the keys presented a problem.  Joe Garrett suggested working on a weight for each of the natural and sharp applications, using  3 oz. of weight for the naturals and 2 ½ oz. of weight for the sharps.  Above is a photo of the weights.  See the Gallery for more photos of their application, plus a material cut-and-assembly sheet. I hope someone will be able to make use of this contribution. The materials are all easily accessible and very inexpensive.

I'm chomping at the bit to get to another grand real soon, and it will probably be my Farrand which I'll do in the spring. 

My Project Gallery includes a series of color photos of the Starr Grand, circa 1936, and the progress from day one through the completion.  Included are a couple of photos of  tools, jigs and racks I made in the process of rebuilding this instrument. 

I've sold the piano to a daughter for $2,300. (What a deal!)  Had this been a customer's piano, the parts alone (with markup) would have been $3,790; the labor hours were 167@ $50.00 per hour = $8350.00.  This would have totaled $12,140.00!   (Mark-down of $9,840.00 = my education over three months and well worth the experience.) 

• Made a wire size chart of the existing wires on the piano; removed all wires.

• Made a pattern for new bass strings and took speaking length dimensions of all plain wire in mm for new scale layout. 

• Removed all tuning pins and wood bushings. 

• Removed plate and pin block. 

• Scrubbed down sand, dressed front bearing bar, spray painted two coats of Steinway Gold and two clear topcoats. 

• Scraped off old finish of soundboard, sanded and applied new Lacquer finish. Cleaned, polished and sealed all plate screws.

• Installed new wood pin bushings and blue tuning pins. 

• Installed new felt damper rail bushings.

• Cleaned and polished all damper moldings.

• Installed new treble, tenor wires and new wound bass strings. 

• Leveled pins, spaced strings to old hammers. 

• In progress, installed all new felts, cloths and hitch pin punchings.

• Numbered new hammers and shanks, reamed new hammers, traveled all shanks and papered any flanges as necessary. 

• Installed new hammers with hot hide glue, trimmed and sanded shank ends. 

• Trimmed hammer tails, installed new key rest felt and hammer rest felt.

• Refinished sharps with Jet Black shoe dye, French Polish, and finished with 0000 steel wool. 

• Cleaned all naturals. Did preliminary level of keys on keybed and then on bench. 

• Installed new pedal rods. Dressed backcheck surface with 220 grit sandpaper and regulated again to hammer tails.  Regulated action. 

• Cleaned, repaired, stained and polished all case parts. 

• After the strings had all been installed, chip tuned five times before the complete rack was installed and then continued to fine tune every other day. 

Between all of this work were phone calls to order tools I needed, in addition to building a new gig, fixture or tool required for the job.  Then, there were many e-mail and telephone consultations with several experts to whom I turned for advice.  And, of course, there were those many trips to Lowes or ACE for something else.

There was wasted time in waiting for materials, parts or a tool to arrive. Had I known in advance the exact parts I'd need before I started, I would have ordered everything at the get-go.  I now have a well-stocked inventory of tools, and probably won't need any additional tools for future projects.  As for the parts, I believe I could now sit down and write the order for most everything I'd need before too much time elapsed.  (The new bass strings took three weeks from the time the pattern and scale dimensions were mailed until they were received.  However, there was a lot of other work accomplished during this period.) 

I associate this phrase with those many people who have helped me in my project and shown their willingness to guide this "rookie" down the path.  If it were not for their unselfish giving of their time and knowledge, I would have been dead in the water. 

I thank you all for taking the time to read my story and I hope I'll have an opportunity to repay in some way the help I received from all of the contributors to my experience and further education. 

"Only those who risk going too far will ever know how far they can go."
 
  

Acknowledgements