Days 23 and 24 – A little bit of everything

Sunday June 27 and Monday June 28 -

Goals: Work on whatever can be worked on, mainly the harp and legs.

Music: Chet Baker’s “My Funny Valentine” 10-CD set (disks 9 and 10); Bix Biederbecke’s “Bix and Tram” set (disks A and B); Carla Bley’s Incredible Big Band’s “Appearing Nightly” (again – yes it’s that good).

At this point in time, I’m sort of in a quandary as far as a systematic approach to my piano project is concerned. The problem is that everything needs to be done, and starting a lot of jobs depends on finishing a lot of other jobs. Can’t clean the keys until I repair them. Can’t put the lyre together until I repair the felt and paint the pedals. Can’t put the pedal assemblies together until I replace the felt. Can’t put the legs back on until I clean and repair them. Can’t put the keys back on their rack until I fit the felt and paint the side bars.

Like that.

I did find out a few things:

-Super glue works better on key repair than wood glue, because it dries clear and because it is liquid enough to get in the tiny spaces between the key surfaces and the wood. It works faster and works the first time.
-Removing veneer sucks, and because I have a dark veneer going in and it’s only 1/42 of an inch, I’m just going to put it over the existing and finish it nice.
-Furniture refinishing chemicals are nasty, nasty, nasty. I’m going to do as little refinishing as possible. Stick to cleaning and repairing blemishes. Save time and energy and get just about the same result.

What I did (concretely): I repaired some of the white keys – five in total, I think. I replaced the felt on the pedal assembly arms. They’ll be ready to re-attach after I clean the dowel pins. I cut out all the felt pieces necessary for the pedal portion of the lyre, including gluing two pairs together to make a fitted pad to cushion the pedals when they are depressed. I wire brushed the hell out of the harp. I worked on it with a wire brush fitting I had, and the going was slow and barely noticeable. I bought three new ones in different sizes, thinking they would work better fresh, and I was right. The upper surface of the harp is essentially dirt and paint chip free, but I have not gotten down to the metal on everything yet. I doubt that I will. Once everything is smooth, I’m going to paint it and see how that looks. I still have to remove all the old bushings from the damper arm pin holes. I also began patching the rear veneer to get it ready to be covered up by the new sheet.