Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum A Salute to Chuck Behm and his Small Shop Academy

During the last two weeks I attended Chuck Behm's Small Shop Academy in which we restored a 100 year old upright piano. It was a great time by all and I learned a lot.

Here is a cursory list of what we learned.

Rebuild 100 Year Old Upright Piano:

1) Disassemble, strip, sand and refinish Case/Bench
2) Replace broken and/or reglue loose key tops
3) Clean and polish all key tops
4) Remove rust and polish all hardware
5) Install new heavy duty casters
6) Remove base strings and ship to vendor to fabricate new ones
7) Remove Pin Block, fabricate and install new pin block
8) Install new tuning pins and strings
9) Repair cracked sound board
10) Reshape hammers
11) Install new Dampers
12) Tune and regulate reassembled piano

In Addition we learned the following skills working on several other upright Pianos:

13) Removed #2 Tuning pins and replaced with #4 Tuning Pins
14) Removed outside hammers to be used as a model for fabricating new hammers
15) Installed new plastic key tops
16) Applied new decals

I now feel comfortable using these new skills to work on upright pianos in my own workshop. Some of the skills still need practice and I will use one of my "beater" pianos to hone them in.

Here is a before photo:



And here is an after photo:




Many Thanks to Chuck Behm,


- Rick

Seeing something done beats hearing about it every time.

Good luck,
Craig

[quote]Seeing something done beats hearing about it every time. - Craig Hair/quote]

Thanks, Craig. In this case, the 4 participants didn't just see something done, they did it themselves. 99.9% of the work done, including the entire refinishing, the routing out of pinfields and installation of new pinblock panels, the repinning and refinishing, the overhaul of the action and the reassembly of the piano - all this was done by the participants and not by me. I just demonstrated techniques and methods, and let them learn by doing.

Go to my facebook page (Chuck Behm) to see more of what we did. Thanks again. Chuck Behm

It's encouraging to see some of these old gems made playable again.

What a beauty! I love the new finish! How does an apprentice technician learn more about refinishing? Should I go to the library and take some woodworking books is it related to piano? I can't afford to go to Iowa for that academy ;-p

Contact Chuck Behm or check out his Facebook page. He has a lot of articles that cover refinishing and other aspects of piano restoration.

P.S. Here is a photo where we were working on the pin block. You can see we used a router to remove the old pin block and the new one is going to have two parts:

To HelloMrZebra (interesting choice of psedonyms!)

I began learning the restoration trade 40 some years ago using the trial and error (with the emphasis on 'error') method of training. Granted, in the modern world there is a lot more opportunity to pick up ideas for free, but actually being in a bonafide piano shop using a variety of tools and having methods explained to you by someone who does this type of work for a business is not something you can duplicate by just going online. Just food for thought.

Here's a look at the piano (a 1904 Geo. Bent upright) that we will be restoring in the next session, coming up the last week of January and the first week of February, 2017: In addition to repairing serious damage to the case before refinishing it with our 3 coat, brushed on finish, we will be accomplishing the following:
1. Regluing loose ribs
2. Shimming and refinishing the soundboard
3. Repairing and / or recapping bridges
4. Routering out pinfields for new pinblock panels
5. Installing new #2 pins and new strings
6. Installing new hammers
7. Refelting and releathering hammer butts and wippens
8. Installing new dampers, damper rail and hammer rail felt
9. Installing all new action springs
10. Refelting the keybed
11. Rebushing the keys
12. Installing new keytops
13. Refinishing the ebony sharps
14. Regulating the action
15. Tuning the piano and voicing the hammers

Anyway, here's a look at the piano. Enrollment in the session will be limited to 6 participants, so if it's something you're interested in, contact me soon.
[img:center][/img]

Hi all - I should clarify that there is a tuition ($2400) for the upcoming session for rebuilding an upright piano. I put everything on hold for 2 weeks to teach the class, so am forfeiting a substantial income from tuning. January through Easter I'm out tuning every day under ordinary circumstances. I've had several inquiries from folks and it should be understood that this is not a cost free class.

For those interested, I do have several payment options. Drop me a note and I'll provide a link if you would like to check those out.

Thanks for your understanding. I didn't intend to make this thread into a commercial, but it was evident from a number of emails that I was receiving that I needed to provide clarification. Chuck Behm

Chuck,

I always had thought (hypothetically, not by any experience) that new pinblock material inlays would be the solution, particularly for uprights but also for many grands where the removal and replacement of the entire pinblock structure would be next to impossible.

My question is: How are these inlays secured so that they effectively become an integral part of the structure?

Hi Bill - First of all, we glue the panels in place with West System epoxy. Each panel is then screwed down to the wood underneath (the panels in this most recent restoration were 1 1/2" maple from Schaff. Then, of course, the cast iron plate is secured on top of the completed installation. In all the installations I've done, I've yet to have any problem with a panel working its way loose, so I think it's a legitimate way to do it.

With a grand, it is possible to install panels, but when the original pinblock stays in place, your ordinary router only works in the center and back end of the pinfields. In order to get in close to the stretcher and sides, one must use an offset router, which typically is belt driven, underpowered and very time consuming. Chuck

Bill - Here's a photo showing the West System epoxy being brushed on inside the cavity for the new panels: [img:center][/img]

And here's another showing the panels being screwed down after the gluing process: [img:center][/img]

And finally one of the plate being lowered back into place:

[img:center][/img]

Thanks for asking about the process. Best regards, Chuck

Ah, excellent, Chuck! Exactly as I imagined it would be done. Somewhat the way steel reinforced concrete works in buildings. Neither material would suffice on its own but the combination of the two results in a solid structure.