Great use for an old piano. Not mine.

BKind2Anmls

New User
Susan
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dino drosas

Dino
Corporate Member
I have a 9 foot concert grand case that I am trying to figure out what to do with. I had it in one of my restaurant's piano bar, Removed the original keyboard - salvaged the ivory keys, and installed a full sized 88 key electronic keyboard. Served me well for many years. Had a dozen bar stools around it - most popular seats in the joint. Started removing the cast iron harp with the strings recently, but but it ends there!
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Oka

Casey
Corporate Member
Moved a few of those damn heavy ........ at a minimum, whenever possible on old pianos, get the hinges.
 

ErnieM

Ernie
Corporate Member
If anyone out there has an old piano and is tempted to do this PLEASE buy a cheap tuning hammer and loosen the tension on all of the strings before you cut them off. There's a reason there's a lot of old time piano tuners that are blind. The strings on a piano are highly tensioned - up to 60,000 pounds. Cutting them off under tension can be very dangerous!
 

FlyingRon

Moderator
Ron
For less than the price of a good tuning hammer, you can get a bit that chucks in a drill that will make quick work of unwinding the pins.
 

ErnieM

Ernie
Corporate Member
For less than the price of a good tuning hammer, you can get a bit that chucks in a drill that will make quick work of unwinding the pins.
Yep, tuning pin bits are available and work well. I used one for years when I was rebuilding pianos. Just one caveat - don't try this with a small, cordless drill. I used a commercial 1/2" drill and it still packed a wallop. A smaller drill will kill your wrist and probably won't have enough power to do the job.
 

junquecol

Bruce
Senior User
How would this work with an up right piano? Once, I saw a piano that took a fall out of the back of a moving van. Imagine an explosion in a mattress factory, lying in the street. The sound board was in a million splinters,
 

ErnieM

Ernie
Corporate Member
How would this work with an up right piano? Once, I saw a piano that took a fall out of the back of a moving van. Imagine an explosion in a mattress factory, lying in the street. The sound board was in a million splinters,

Pretty much the same way as in a grand piano. In an upright you would have to remove the keybed (the wooden structure that the keyboard sits on) in order
to remove the cast iron plate.

As an aside, before the middle of the 19th century, pianos had no cast iron plate to resist the string tension. Pianos imploding due to excess string tension was not an uncommon occurrence. Ouch!
 

Gotcha6

Dennis
Staff member
Corporate Member
Pretty much the same way as in a grand piano. In an upright you would have to remove the keybed (the wooden structure that the keyboard sits on) in order
to remove the cast iron plate.

As an aside, before the middle of the 19th century, pianos had no cast iron plate to resist the string tension. Pianos imploding due to excess string tension was not an uncommon occurrence. Ouch!
.... and those were the "good old days?"
 

FlyingRon

Moderator
Ron
How would this work with an up right piano? Once, I saw a piano that took a fall out of the back of a moving van. Imagine an explosion in a mattress factory, lying in the street. The sound board was in a million splinters,
Ouch. I was really nervous when we moved my C5 to its new home:

 

FlyingRon

Moderator
Ron
Good thing you don't have a C7 - you would have taken out a gutter or two. That is scary.
When they said they wanted to use that side of the balcony, I was thinking, hey it's plenty wide (about four feet). I forgot to account for the roof overhang.
The deck on the other side is about 20 feet wide (that's how they craned the granite in for that room). If I had been smart, I'd have only had the crane out once.

Actually, the pianos are all about the same width and thickness, the C7 is just a foot longer.
 

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