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On the afternoon before this piano was going to be moved back to her school, I was putting all parts together. The fallboard didn't want to lift all the way up. It turned out that we raised the key height too high according to the new action design. The felt on bottom of fallboard was rubbing on key tops. About a week before leaving the shop, the piano shall be put together to make sure nothing goes wrong at the last minute. It was 4pm. The boss was attending an important meeting, not in town. I went through our supplies and found we have thinner self-adhesive felt. The old felt was stripped down with razer blades and sanding block. I ran finger over the stripped surface to make sure it was smooth without bump. Put the fallboard back to piano, hmm, we have room for the thinner felt, possibly. Carefully, the felt was sticked on the fallboard. I thought the job was going to be finished soon and started to feel proud. What if the felt puffs up with increased humidity? This question was raised by our coworker Joe Harrington. I took out a soldering iron, ironed the felt surface back and forth. Now the fallboard opens up completely. Hmm, the felt was still very close to key tops, when opening the fallboard, the keys went down then up to position. There was other felt thinner than the self-adhesive one. Ok, strip that down. Try it one more time. Roo Glue was applied with a brush for the thinnest felt we have in the shop. Again, carefully the felt was glued onto the bottom of the fallboard. At this time, James Maggio, refinisher for Steinert Boston came in, he said he would use a hand plane to reduce the wood to give more room. I felt that would require more time and a higher hand skill level. Also I wanted to get the job done and go home. But this method would be applied in the future. I should improve hand skill and keep the tools sharp, will do! In the end, to be 100% sure nothing would go wrong with the fallboard, Jude, the shop owner, came in the middle of the night. He removed the pivot pins on each end of the fallboard, plugged the holes, redrilled new holes a little lower than the original, then installed the pivot pins again (no pictures for this process). At 6:15am the next morning, our professional mover friend Mr. Michael Griffin came in with his 3 strong buddies. The piano was delivered back to her studio at a local school.
What a nerve-racking lesson. Thanks to Jude and James. Mr. David Betts, are you laughing again in heaven or wherever you are now? Comments are closed.
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