Italian inventor Bartolomeo Cristofori designed the first piano for Prince Ferdinando de Medici. One hundred and fifty-three years later, German immigrant Henry Engelhard Steinweg founded the company Steinway & Sons in Manhattan. He and his five sons are largely responsible for some of the ideas behind the design of the modern piano.
Saturday, 9 Jul 11
My grandmother gave me a 1916/1917 Steinway & Sons model O, serial no. 177448, which I have named The Volkert. After several weeks in trucks and storage facilities, it arrived at Bernard Mollberg's shop in Blanco, TX directly from Bellevue, WA.
Saturday, 16 Jul 11
Dr. Mallard, George, and I visited the shop. Bernard showed us wooden extensions that had previously been drilled into The Volkert's underside, supporting seven large springs that exerted a tremendous amount of upward force onto the soundboard. That was strange. George memorized every detail of the piano and asked Bernard if we could preserve the original soundboard decal. Four days later, my completed paperwork was in the shop.
Friday, 12 Aug 11
This was the first day I was able to work on The Volkert myself. I started by breaking beckets, which are the parts of the wire that bend into the hole of each tuning pin. I then pulled the curly wire out from the pins, clipped and removed the wire, and unscrewed the tuning pins. Osious, another technician, helped me remove the bolts holding down the cast iron plate, which was then lifted with machinery.
Friday, 19 Aug 11
With levers and hammers, we banged out the soundboard, which had been secured to the inner rim with hide glue. From what I understand, hide glue is made from boiling a dead animal, and is almost the same thing as jello. The glue joint comes loose with water and heat. After the larger soundboard pieces were chiseled from the inner rim, I used an iron, wet towels, and scraping tools to steam off the rest. The soundboard is made from spruce, a soft wood, and the inner rim is made from layers of maple, which are much harder.
Friday, 26 Aug 11
After clamping the bridges down to a table, I used a vise-grip to remove the steel bridge pins. A chicken climbed into the bottom of my table and we became friends. I was able to scrape most of the lacquer off the bridges with a razor blade. With a bench grinder and wire wheel, I removed rust and debris from the plate bolts, and the threads looked brand new (see below).
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