Day 6 – Sunday, May 30:

Goals: Remove the pin block frame, whatever it is; finish repair of bench

Music: Bill Evans’ “Everybody Digs Bill Evans”

Finished with the bench. Installed my fabricated bottom, reattached the legs, tightened everything down, and now I have my little box to hold all the parts of the piano I strip off of it, not to mention somewhere to sit while working inside the piano.

More importantly, I finally got all the screws out of the pin block frame. It turns out that the one that was giving me all the trouble is actually an 8.5” long jobbie that connects the pin block frame to the bottom of the piano through the soundboard. It was pretty well rusted in place, but I scraped everything free at the top, banged on it a few times to shake it loose, hammer-and-chiseled at it with the small screwdrivers, and finally put everything I had into the big screwdriver and ever so slowly loosened it and got it out. I immediately cleaned it with WD-40, as I think it quite unlikely I’ll ever be able to find a replacement for that screw. Here's a shot of that screw next to the hole I removed it from.

Then, I found one more screw that I missed and after removing it, tried to lift the pin block frame, but it appears to me that the tuning pins attach to the soundboard through the pin block frame, meaning that I have to remove the strings in order to remove the pin block frame. Oh well. We’re back to having to do a complete refurbishment anyway, so in the evening, I started to remove the strings. I’ve managed to take off eight so far.

Thanks to the shortened square piano keyboard, only 77 more to go. Memorial Day 2010 will be more memorable than most for me, if I manage to extract the frame.