Day 20 – Saturday, June 19:

Goals: Remove and clean the keys and clean out the frame under them. Figure out what felt I need and order it.

Music: Chet Baker’s “My Funny Valentine” collection, disks 5, 6, and 7; Count Basie’s “The Complete Atomic Basie”; Ran Blake Quartet’s “Short Life of Barbara Monk”. (Yep, still more or less working through my entire collection in order...forgot how good “Short Life...” is, so I’m glad I’m taking this opportunity to reacquaint myself with my not insubstantial jazz CD collection.)

Although I wanted to work on the harp and lid pieces today, it rained heavily during the first part of the day, making putting the cars outside and working in the garage more trouble than it would have been worth, so I decided to work inside on the keys, just cleaning them up and assessing how much felt I needed. And it’s times like these when I really am glad the square grand is three keys shorter than a standard piano. You can tell how long that took by how much music I listened to.

  Oh, great. 12 more feet of felt I've got to buy!

Now all the key levers are clean. I still have to clean the actual key parts and glue down certain portions. (The piano guy said that antique pianos should look a little imperfect and he advised against replacing the key tops.) Maybe tomorrow the weather will cooperate and I’ll be able to cut the grass then do some sanding and wire brushing outside. If not, I’ll keep working on the keys.

The picture below is the only fun thing I got to do with the keys while cleaning them. I may be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure I saw something like that in an art museum once. This picture I got for free (and you did too)!