Forgive me for a question that is surely trivial to you.
I am not a pianist, but a decent keyboardist; I love this instrument so much and I was given one that is a bit old. The brand is STEINERT
My financial situation does not allow me for technical consultation from an expert and the relative restoration, so with a modest "do it yourself" approach and the help of some friends, I am about to recover it as much as possible, but I am already facing an obstacle.
Wanting to start with an accurate analysis of what I could recover and give a good cleaning, I would need to disassemble the upright piano or, rather, the wooden part..
I don't know where to start and I wouldn't want to cause further damage. I searched online for some tutorials that might give me some tips, but I didn't find much.
Could you help me with some links (if you have any) so that I can post some photos here on the forum to get some advice? In the meantime, I am posting some photos taken quickly with my iPhone to give you an idea of what I am facing.
Thanking you in advance, I compliment you on the creation of this beautiful forum.
You can remove the front panel by removing the internal side latches. Then the keyboard "tray" will come off. Underneath, you can remove the second lower front panel. And then? Well, removing the action and putting it back in place requires experience and some care. So just limit yourself to cleaning it by vacuuming and gently brushing the parts with a soft brush. Do not use liquids.
Hi, while waiting for responses from the experts, I can tell you that its restoration and/or adjustment is not very intuitive! The instrument they gave you for a not very high cost, in my opinion, is more about playing decently. The soundboard seems intact. If your recovery refers only to the cabinet, I think something can be done... by yourself!
The front cover is disassembled by rotating the two small wooden blocks located at the top. They can be seen in photos 8 and 9! I see that you have already disassembled the bottom cover.
The last piece to disassemble is the keyboard cover. I don't know anything more!
Let's start being a single Musical Energy!!!!!!!!!
M
monitral
Member
Reply 6 by monitral
Posts
3
Thank you for the quick replies.
Unfortunately, I am used to "playing" (the quotes are mandatory) the piano on my keyboards and lately on a Casio digital piano bought for my son's lessons, as I cannot afford an acoustic piano. Now that I have a real piano, I would like to get to work. What interests me is not so much the aesthetics of the furniture as the functioning of the piano. Since there are some keys that remain depressed, some hammers that remain down, the muffler (I believe that long rectangle of felt is called that) is unusable (in fact, it is not visible in the photos because it was removed), and besides the lack of tuning for some keys, I think the first thing to do is give it a good dusting/refresh. I don't intend to disassemble its mechanics, partly because I wouldn't be capable of it, but rather try to make some adjustments as explained in the tutorials and try to tune it. I don't want to take work away from anyone, but, as explained, I have other priorities; so if I succeed, it will be a great satisfaction for me, otherwise I'll keep the nice piece of furniture and see in better times. Thank you, and I will keep you updated on my adventure.
I'm going slightly off-topic just to compliment the pianist who performed the musical interlude in the first tutorial on piano technique.
The piano has another kind of charm... without taking anything away from keyboards that allow you to do many beautiful things!
My advice is to clean it following Paolo's tips; as for the rest, I assure you that restoration is not easy! I would also like to know how to restore, tune, and regulate a piano, but I realized that it takes a lot of time to understand, see, and study before getting your hands on it.
Keep in mind that to tune it you need a suitable wrench which costs around 150 euros minimum (complete sets even go beyond 300 euros) and with that money you could have it tuned and still have change left over; not to mention what tuning a piano actually means!
P.S. if you are thinking about buying those 30 euro wrenches... don't do it! (I read your mind, didn't I? 😃 :D )
Be patient and when you can, fix it one little thing at a time!
