Piano scavenging adventures

[younggun]

Okay, I've been sub'd since the beginning this thread...so where is the freakn' bass already!?
Heheh, just kid'n.
Seriously though, I am curious if you have any specific project(s) in mind yet, now that you've got it mostly taken apart?

 

[reverendrally]

I was thinking some sort of multiscale, extended range thing maybe. But only 4 strings max. The heaviest string I have is really heavy duty so I reckon a low F if I can manage.

 

[pilotjones]

You're going to have in interesting time when you try to wrap the cores of those bass strings around a peg. waaaaay stiffer than a guitar string core.

If you want to use those strings on a fretted instrument, you will probably want wide jumbo frets. The wrap wires on piano strings are huge in comparison to those of guitar/bass strings, since they never have to contact anything that isn't felt, and are only there to provide mass, not to be manipulated other than the hammer strikes and damper mutes.

 

[Will_White]

I was thinking some sort of multiscale, extended range thing maybe. But only 4 strings max. The heaviest string I have is really heavy duty so I reckon a low F if I can manage.

So you don't lose range maybe try 5ths tuning, FCGD same high string as a BEAD bass and you get 4 lower notes.

 

[reverendrally]

There's be a whole bag of crazy. But that can wait for now.

 

[reverendrally]

Right, so this is as far as I've got with salvaging the soundboard. It's 135yo spruce... and the tree probably was much older than that when felled in Europe some where. I won't horrify you with the butchery of how I got the bridges of off...

My big problem now is, I don't want to hack all the braces off them lift the remains like I did with the bridges. The bracing is also 135yo spruce and would make awesome bracing stock.

I've tried it with an iron... no cigar. And the heat gun is just too much. What I'm wondering about is steam, but I don't have a pressure cooker.

 

[farace]

Right, so this is as far as I've got with salvaging the soundboard. It's 135yo spruce... and the tree probably was much older than that when felled in Europe some where. I won't horrify you with the butchery of how I got the bridges of off...

My big problem now is, I don't want to hack all the braces off them lift the remains like I did with the bridges. The bracing is also 135yo spruce and would make awesome bracing stock.

I've tried it with an iron... no cigar. And the heat gun is just too much. What I'm wondering about is steam, but I don't have a pressure cooker.

I popped the braces off a soundboard earlier this year by getting under them with a wood chisel and giving it a whack. It wasn't always clean, some braces broke, and the glue joints holding the sections of soundboard together sometimes opened, but it was sufficient for my purposes.

 

[Beej]

I've got an old espresso maker that I've rigged the steamer up with an old rubber hose and needle tip from a bicycle pump. I get the steamer going and it pushes down the rubber hose and out the needle tip. The tip is small enough to fit underneath a fret so I can drill a hole, press the needle tip in and pump steam into the joint. I usually use it for removing acoustic necks, but something like this could be rigged up to use in your case here as well. I'll see if I can get some pics up, but there are numerous examples out there on the interwebz...

 

[reverendrally]

Love to see some pics

 

[reverendrally]

This the last installment in piano scavenging adventures. I've spent the last couple of days pulling the spruce braces off the soundboard. Man, what a mission!

I tried steam after buying a cheap pressure cooker ($23). No cigar. The wood just got really wet and the thin paint scraper I was using was just tearing it up. So back to the heat gun, scraper and 1" chisel.

Basically what I'd do is heat the scraper up really hot, then slip it under the brace for far enough that I could put the chisel under the edge to lever it up. Then I'd heat scraper and the timber (as gently as possible) and work my way along until the brace came off. Only 2 braces splintered. The rest came off ok. Which is really cool, because the braces are also spruce and will make excellent bracing for acoustic instruments. Sorry there are no "how to" pics but I needed 3 hands as it was. Holding a phone was impossible.

The soundboard was cracked in a few places. The longest, largest board has the biggest crack, but then I already knew that. I'm not all that stressed about it, because I can easily glue it up. The panels are 8mm thick, so I can easily thickness sand them down for other instruments. All of the spruce in the piano was hard, well seasoned and really strong.

So, that's it for now. Down the track (when my car is running again), it will be time to use some for a "piano bass" and some other interesting projects.