Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Why won't the keys on my old upright piano work?

I am restoring an old upright piano, made by Blasius and Sons in 1901. I removed all the action (hammers etc.) to clean behind it. When I went to put it back in, it sits too low, and the hammers move too close to the keys. The whole assembly sits on four brass pins, and it is securely on them, and it looks the same as it was before, but the keys won't depress, because the action sits too low!

Please help!

benatmur,
Welcome to the forum.
No the bridle tapes may be broken. Or the jack has tripped out and is jamming the hammer set.

I'm a relative novice at this, but something jamming something sounds like what is happening.

Would you be able to describe a solution to this problem in more detail.

Thanks again.

There are cloth straps (bridle straps) that go from the hammer butts to a wire on the wippen. They have usually rotted away by the time the piano is as old as yours. Once they do, you can take the action out of the piano, but you cannot put it back until they are replaced, because the wippen falls down so that the top of the jack is under the hammer butt felt. The jack pushes against the felt, pushing the hammer forward and jamming the jack so the keys will not move. (That is if you are lucky. If you are not, the hammer butt felt or the jacks will be damaged.)

If you do not understand this, contemplate an action diagram, or better yet, get help.

You mean you are refinishing and cleaning not restoring. Don't misrepresent the piano.

A nicely restored musical instrument is a beautiful thing and is worthy of being refinished. Then it is worth far more than any monetary value.

A nicely finished box that makes sound when you push on the keys is not a piano. It's just a wornout piece of machinery that someboidy made pretty.

Have somebody help lift some weight off the keys and start from one end tripping the jacks towards you. You get lucky and nothing will break. Maybe you should call a tech to evaluate the action and give you an estimate to replace the bridle straps so technicians can work on the action easily. You are probably going to have to take the action in and out a few more times.... You Think?
:rolleyes:

"Hello?"

"Hi. I'm calling about the 57 inch Steinway upright piano you're advertising. You say it's fully restored, right?"

"Yes, it is fully restored."

"Ok. In the picture of the piano you posted in the ad, the cabinet is VERY beautiful. I find it hard to believe you are offering this piano only for $500. Is there a reason you're trying to sell it quickly?"

"Well, we are moving this weekend and we really need the piano out of here."

"Oh. Another question. When the piano was restored, what was done to the inside of the piano? Does it have new strings? New action parts? New hammers?"

"The technician filed the hammers, twisted the bass strings, and tuned the piano about 6 months ago."

"Oh. I guess the piano was only refinished, not restored. You see, when a piano is restored, not only the cabinet is refinished, but the internal mechanism is rebuilt with new parts. In many cases, the pinblock and soundboard are also replaced, but if they are in good condition they can sometimes get by without replacement."

"Oh, so it was NOT restored?"

"No. However, I think $700 is still a good price for a piano that has been refinished, so long as it plays and is in tune, which based on your description it is. I'll have to think about it, though."

"Would you like to come see it? We are available tomorrow afternoon."

"Ok. Where are you located?"

"I'll call you back about it, ok?"

"Ok, thank you for calling."

"No problem. Goodbye."

"Bye."


a few minutes later....


"Hello, this is BDB SemiPro Tech piano service speaking, how may I help you?"

"Hi, BDB, this is 88key from the Piano World forums. I'm going to be looking at a 57" Steinway upright that's being offered for sale for $500 tomorrow afternoon. The seller said it was restored, but when I called her, I learned that it was only refinished, and the only work done to the inside of the piano was tuning, filing hammers and twisting bass strings. She did say the piano was refinished."

"Well, 88 key, as I've said about upright pianos on the forums, that piano is worthless."

"That's kind-of what I was thinking, even though I did tell her I still thought $500 was a good price for a refinished piano. But, the piano wouldn't even be worth 1¢ even if the action was totally rebuilt by the Steinway factory in New York or Hamburg with all new parts, the plate was repainted, soundboard and pinblock replaced, piano restringed and repinned, cabinet refinished, even though it IS a Steinway?"

"That is correct."

"Oh. Ok. I guess I'll keep looking then. Thanks for the advice."

(The preceeding was fictitious.)


BDB, would I be wrong about the value of old uprights? I've seen you post on various threads that a particular upright might be worthless or have no value. Is this regardless of condition or name, or do I need to be corrected on this?

Old large uprights are worthless because you can find people who are giving equivalent pianos away for free. There are a few exceptions, but they are few and far between. You can find some that have some life in them that people will give you for free.

Old Steinway uprights might have some value, except that they are extremely difficult to rebuild properly, and so that rarely happens. There are a great many that have been rebuilt improperly, which ruins whatever value they might have had.

In this case, "old" means before WWII. That is about 70 years ago.

If one of these pianos were properly rebuilt, they might have some value. Not as much as a newer piano, because the bulk of pianos of that era drives down the value, and there is some loss of longevity, which is risky. Also, one must evaluate the rebuild quality, another risk. In most cases, the value is less than the cost of the work. That is the case with the last upright that I sold, many years ago. I did not feel it was right to charge what I would have charged to do the work on it. The piano just was not worth it after it was done, because you could get equivalent new pianos for only a little bit more.

There are also a lot of spinets out there that have no value, again, because people give away equivalent pianos. Some of those may be as little as 40 years old.

Even refinishing is difficult. It costs more to strip a piano and refinish it than to finish a new piano. It is difficult to refinish anything well, especially compared to factory-applied finishes. So you end up spending more and not getting as good a job as on a new piano.

I wish it were not so. I prefer the action on old uprights (once they are properly restored) to those on new uprights. But things get old. Even I have!

(I was waiting for today's announcements because I need to replace my PowerBook, and it is not nearly as old as any of my pianos! At least I managed to get another year out of it by replacing the drive.)

Thanks for the insight BDB.

I'm looking at older uprights in my search for another piano (mostly pre-WWI (not WWII)) because I want something that'll blow away the upright I recently got rid of. It too was a pre-WWI upright with new bass strings, and it has a better bass than just about all new pianos I've played, even though the bass hammers were just about worn down to the moldings.
(Basically, here's a short sample of my old upright\'s bass . By comparison, I'd like, if possible within a budget of what you say most old uprights are worth, to get something at least as much better than this piano as this one is. )

I haven't played any new pianos that I have really liked with a price (for the standard no-frills Satin/Polished Ebony model) in the Larry Fine 2008-09 supplement for under $190k. And, the only new(er) piano I've played that even remotely comes close to having the overall tone I'm looking for is the Fazioli F-278 or F-308. (And, this is only based on a F278 I've played several years ago at a piano store in VA, and some Ivory Italian Grand samples I've heard. The F308 I played at NAMM a couple years ago was quite disappointing.)

I'm willing to put up with a lot less in a used piano than I would in a new. For example, I've seen some people in some posts, when asking about an older piano for purchase, be told they could get a new piano for not much more $ (which happens to be a low-end Chinese piano). If I would be willing to put up with a $2,500 Chinese piano for a new piano, then by comparison, for a used piano I'd be looking at a spinet that is straight strung, has a 3/4 plate, a birdcage drop action, has been through a fire AND flood, has a badly cracked soundboard, a rotted pinblock, split bridges, a broken plate, very rusty strings, decomposed action parts, etc....
Actually, though... I'm looking more along the lines of older uprights that have been babied throughout their lives, and were originally good quality when new (with agraffes, duplex scale, lost motion compensator, plain trichords down to A#2 with several wound trichords below that and no foreshortening of speaking lengths in the tenor, full sostenuto, same attention to detail in construction that goes into a new Tier 1A concert grand, etc). (I've been looking on Craigslist, but seeing as this is NOT my "I'm looking for a piano" topic, I won't post any links (candidates) in here.)