Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Refinishing a grand piano

To mention Minwax, how do you pros rate it? It's readily available, but here in Phoenix we have a few specialty stores that sell better brands. Being just an amatuer schlub myself, it's really hard to know how to do it properly and what kinds of materials to use.

And regarding shellac, there's a web site that has everything you always wanted to know about shellac but were afraid to ask (for fear that you'd learn it). Go to www.shellac.net as they've got quite a lot of information on how to use it and how to do French Polishing (if that's your taste, and times being what they are).

Misleading? In what way? I wasn’t suggesting that we drink the stuff or even bath in it. Only that I find them to be less bad than the more caustic alternatives. (I should emphasize that soy-based strippers do not work as quickly as their more caustic counterparts. In fact, they may not work at all on some latex-based paints or other house and wall paints. They do work reasonably well on old piano-style varnish.)




Generally when I am advising an amateur on the practice and process of refinishing I stick to materials that are designed for the amateur refinisher. These materials may not be as good as those preferred by the professional refinisher in some ways but they are formulated to be quite forgiving of the mistakes commonly made by the amateur. They do just what they are intended to do; they go on fairly easily, usually provide adequate application time, level out well without being overly prone to runs and sags, etc. Do I use them in my shop? No. But few amateurs are willing to make the investment in facility, equipment or experience necessary to safely and efficiently use professional materials. They just want to get the old finish off, the surface smoothed and stained with reasonable smoothness and a new finish applied with a minimum of fuss and mess. Not that piano finishing by either the professional or the amateur can ever be without some considerable fuss and mess.

For those wishing to know more about the subject than can ever be covered in this forum I’d suggest one of two books:
Understanding Wood Finishing—2nd Edition by Bob Flexner and Taunton's Complete Illustrated Guide to Finishing by Jeff and Susan Jewitt. Both give a pretty good overview of hand-applied and spray-applied finishes.

ddf

Del,

About those two books... I could get both of them through a local online bookstore, at much the same price (about $50 each). Between the two of them, which one would you recommend? I'm also wondering whether they are "American" in the sense that they refer to specific American products (brands), household names or terms, e.g. "white spirits" vs. "(mineral) turpentine".

My brother, who lives in Ohio and recently retired, has a small furniture refinishing business. He says business is booming and he has more than he can do...

He does not used chemical strippers... he says he only uses various grades of sand paper, steel wool, a scraper and steel-wire brushes to remove the old finish.

I too have always enjoyed restoring and refinishing old things... I've learned though, that you are often better off to buy something already restored. But, where is the fun and excitment in that?

Rick

I started to write that you should be able to get them for a whole lot less than $50 each—Amazon lists them for $21 and $23—then recalled that you are in South Africa.

I have them both but, were I to pick just one I’d probably go with Jeff Jewitt’s Taunton book. As is typical of Taunton’s publications it’s very well illustrated and it covers a lot of territory. Probably more than the amateur will want to deal with but useful for those wanting to go some further. I don’t remember how “American” the book is; my copy is still packed away someplace and I don’t expect to be able to get to it for another month or so.

ddf

For someone with experience and skill, that's fine. First time out, it's dangerous. You can sand through veneers surprisingly fast.

Wow, thanks again for all your input everyone, especially you Del. Someday I hope to meet you, I do get to WA occasionally.

I don't expect I will be refinishing my piano for a few year, but that will give me time to gather more information (and courage. Ha!)

You're welcome any time--well, anytime I'm here. I still travel some so you might want to call first.

We're kind of out in the country and the shop is some smaller but there is usually something interesting going on. And the coffee grinder is always close by.

ddf

Mr Magic,

While trawling through the archives on some refinishing questions, I stumbled across this thread - hopefully still young enough to revive without too much fuss. Are there any new developments, a few months down the line?

Hi Mark, no fuss from me!

No new developments tho. For now I'm just enjoying the heck out of the piano, especially after a fresh tuning and regulation on Monday. All I've done is go over it with Scott's Liquid Gold which performs a minor but somewhat short lived miracle to the finish. It is very easy to do tho.

For now I'm leaving it as it is. As I've mentioned before, it's in a large basement room, so it doesn't need to impress with it's looks. And when my 23 year old niece saw it and very emphatically told me to never change it, saying "it has character!", I had to agree. At least for now. She has plenty of such ‘character’ in her cute little cottage.

Thank you for posting the picture. It looks very very nice. Interesting to hear how the Scott's performed the minor miracle. If you have any inside pictures, those would be nice to see too. :-)
I bought a satin black grand last Fall that had some pretty bad scrapes and gouges on the fallboard, keyslip, and one leg. I was thoroughly amazed how easily I was able to repair the problems on the fallboard and keyslip. (I haven't gotten to the leg just yet, but hope to very soon.) Granted, it is satin black which is a whole different story than your beautiful stained color, but all I had to do was sand it carefully, fill in the gouges with wood putty, sand again, then use spray primer, followed by 7 or 8 light coats of spray satin lacquer. I then "rubbed it out", so to speak with a very soft cloth. The results surpassed my expectations completely, but as I said it is satin black which would have to be the easiest finish to work on, right? I am really looking forward to working on the front left leg, although that is going to be a little more work since it looks like someone wrapped a chain around it and tried to spin it. I can't imagine how it was gouged so badly on the one edge, but I'm sure I'll be able to make it look much better.
The bench was also in terrible shape with scratches and nicks, but I did the same things to it, and it looks fantastic now.

Regards,

Hi Steve, I really like satin black finish. Good luck with that leg! What kind of piano is it?

Here are a couple more pics. These have already appeared on various post on PW so hope no one minds!

Thanks for the feedback! (I might have seen the pics before, but if I did, I'd already forgotten about them. Beautiful either way!)

That piano has come a long way. Great pics too. Is that a tenor bridge i see there?

Rotom

Thanks, and yes it has come a long way and more than a few $. Well worth it tho.

Yes it is tenor bridge. I had never seen this arragement before, but apparently they are used to even out the sound on some pianos.