Old Upright Tear-Apart

[Farrell]

I've had an old termite-eaten 1890 or so Knabe upright in my garage for a few years. I wanted some spruce to fool with, so I thought I would take the soundboard out. I thought also, it might be good experience to take an upright apart that I didn't have to worry about screwing up. WOW, what an experience! Those old uprights are REALLY put together! 

It took me three hours from start to having the soundboard out. The plate on this one actually wraps around the piano bottom - it has a 3-inch or so wide flange that screws into the bottom of the frame (is that common?). I have the frame completely stripped of any other wood - just a big rectangle with two huge cross beams - that thing is SOOOOOO solid. Looks to be made of some kind of sugar-pine-like wood. Getting the plate out was a bit tough - it has an open pinblock and the plate has a flange that goes along the bottom of the pinblock (one solid plank of hard maple - not laminated) and has a real tight fit - and then on the bottom side of the flange is something like an inverse pinblock of thick ash to which the soundboard mounts - it is also fit real tight to the flange. Therefore I had to remove the pinblock so that I could remove the plate.

Anyway, the bottom line here is that if you have never completely disassembled a piano, I highly recommend that you find yourself a decent old upright and slowly and methodically turn it into firewood - observing its construction as you do so. It is a very good education.

Oh, and one other thing. If you see any small evidence of termites in a piano - like one little pinhole with a little bit of frass nearby - the whole piano may well be nothing but termite channels. These termites seemed to have a preference for hard maple and whatever the case panel cores were made of. Not much evidence of them on the outside of the piano - but, WOW, they were everywhere inside the wood - it is absolutely amazing how much of a piano they can eat!

Terry Farrell