Fellow belly heads As time goes by I'm starting to have more opportunity to attempt improvements on Models of Pianos that IMO need it. My Father Harold, to the right of me sold Yamaha pianos for 20 years. To me the 5 -7" G-2 for some reason was quite a boring sounding piano. We are currently giving a fairly inexpensive face list to a 30 year old G-2. It always had a stingy sound & not a very interesting tonal envelope. We took it in for a hammer transplant & strings & in the process discovered some of the reason it is stingy. The 5 ft & 7 " piano has a .400 thick Sika spruce panel. Not all over but mostly . The thinnest spot I coud find was >380. The panel has very tight grain as in 25 to 30 grains an inch. It has adequate crown & bearing with compression visible in the panel & moderate compression ridges in evidence.... SO I decided to diaphramize this tubby little beast to seek improvement. I drilled small access holes (1.5mm) at the perimeter thru the board in the curved section under the plate. The nose bolt holes also serve this purpose. This allows for the wire end of a caliper to protrude thru the holes & the taking of initial measurements & also to track progess. I employ a low angle Lie- Nielsen smoothing plane for the bulk of removal of wood. I'm aiming to get about .340 ish in the middle & about . 300 or less around the tail & behind the bass bridge. The flat side & the belly rail also were thinned. My goal to create a thinner more flexible dome shaped panel. A small bull nose type planes allowed for access in tight places such as the bass bridge to rim. . Interestingly each plank of the board was laid out so that it had opposing grain or in other words I had to reverse the direction of planing to reduce tear out on each panel. The tight hard grain wanted to really tear out every chance it got. The small plane with approximately 5/8" blade also reduced tear out & surprisingly I did a lot of grain tear clean up with the small bull nose without further damage. After thorough & appropriate sanding we sealed with shellac & then proceeded with Lacquer sealer & gloss top coats folowed a good hand rub out followed by machine buffing with swirl removers which made it look quite shiny but & not as glossy looking as polyester. (Nothing wrong with shiny)The original poly coat was 10 mils thick. The 8 coats of lacquer I bet is 5. Nothing wrong with 10 mils either IMO The boom or tap test really went from thuddy & tight near the edges to vibrant & boom in the middle sounded much more free. Trix is half thru stringing it and I will report on the final out come in a week or so. I consulted with Ron O. about floating the bass but because of fiscal restraints passed on the idea. We are using Jolly loops on the first 10 bass mono chord notes to set some of backscale free. All in all we probably spent about 3 ish hours planing & sanding less than 3 ish hours for the rest. No more than 8 hours It will be an interesting project & beleive it will prove to make the poor girls intrument far more interesting & she deserves it. Having fun here Dale Erwin http://tinyurl.com/oeent http://ptg.org/pipermail/files/attachments/20060305/0ab9405b/ attachment-0010.jpe Dad tells me I'm nuts below...again...... http://tinyurl.com/qsml7 http://ptg.org/pipermail/files/attachments/20060305/0ab9405b/ attachment-0011.jpe Trix sanding below & doing some of the dirty work http://tinyurl.com/rosh8 http://ptg.org/pipermail/files/attachments/20060305/0ab9405b/ attachment-0012.jpe Below cutting behind the bass bridge with the small plane http://tinyurl.com/npzzk http://tinyurl.com/ngelu http://ptg.org/pipermail/files/attachments/20060305/0ab9405b/ attachment-0013.jpe http://ptg.org/pipermail/files/attachments/20060305/0ab9405b/ attachment-0018.jpe sanded & ready to shoot below http://tinyurl.com/sxwdv http://tinyurl.com/m2xwg http://ptg.org/pipermail/files/attachments/20060305/0ab9405b/ attachment-0015.jpe http://ptg.org/pipermail/files/attachments/20060305/0ab9405b/ attachment-0016.jpe Below Other than my *0 year old Dad posing, the front dark edge of the panel is clearly visible & is easy to see & measure thickness with calipers. I usually take note of this in most pianos for mental notes & reference http://tinyurl.com/qzllz http://ptg.org/pipermail/files/attachments/20060305/0ab9405b/ attachment-0017.jpe Finishing complete & stringing in progress http://tinyurl.com/nu4xf http://ptg.org/pipermail/files/attachments/20060305/0ab9405b/ attachment-0018.jpe http://tinyurl.com/rerhj http://ptg.org/pipermail/files/attachments/20060305/0ab9405b/ attachment-0019.jpe Best regards. Get out yer planes & fly Dale Erwin Dale Erwin--Piano Restorations 4721 Parker Rd. Modesto, Calif 95357 Shop 209-577-8397 cell 209-985-0990 http://www.erwinspiano.com/ Specializing in the restoration, service & Sales of Steinway, Mason & Hamlin, & other fine pianos -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20060305/cf589302/attachment-0001.html
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