Day 8 –Thursday, June 3 – “Everybody wants a piece of the action”:

Goals: Remove the action. (Everybody wants a piece)
Music: Andrew Hill’s “Point of Departure”; Brad Mehldau Trio’s “The Art of the Trio”

After spending a lot of time online, I thought I had picked up enough clues to be able to free up and remove the action (key and hammer assembly) from my piano. Previously, I just hadn’t been able to find what parts separated from what parts, and I sure didn’t see any screws, latches or pins or anything that seemed to be holding everything in place. But, I read somewhere about the action of a grand piano “just sliding out”. I was anxious to have a look at my piano and see if it looked like something might slide somewhere.

The only vaguely loose piece on the front of the piano was the board in front of the piano keys. After two sips of my beer, I had just the right amount of moist tackiness on my fingers, so I grabbed hold of that board and gently pulled forward.

Nothing.

Well, that’s not it, I thought. That little bit of movement, however, did jar quite a bit of dust out of the corner formed by those two pieces, so I still thought I had the right notion. I pulled at it once more, this time in a 90-degree vertical direction, and…

It came right off! (It’s held in place by a couple of screws and some V-notches that sit on top of the screws.

There I was, staring at a nasty felt pad, some faded ivory key fronts, and a bunch of dirt. There were six screws underneath that piece of wood, two holding the action in place, and four for that board to sit on, and in the center was a metal rod which turned out to be the handle that you pull to remove the action. I pulled out and numbered the screws, got another area rug from the garage and set it down opposite the piano, pulled on the handle, and removed the action. I spent the rest of the evening vacuuming the inside of the piano, vacuuming all the dust off the hammers and keys, rescuing all the damper felts and leather tabs (which will be replaced anyway, but now I have almost all the originals so I can manufacture exact duplicates), and wiping down the wood. I don’t plan to do anything further to the action until I’ve consulted with somebody who knows what they are doing, because those things are delicate and obviously, the most important part of the piano. Mess that up, and I really may have to turn the sucker into a desk!

Here’s some photos of where I’m at now.