Days 44 and 45 – Saturday, August 7 and Sunday, August 8 – Plugging Away:

Goals: Finish the harp; do any job that is still open that is preventing me from re-installing the harp; continue with the felt work; clean and felt the keys.

Music: Miles Davis’ “The Complete ‘In a Silent Way’ Sessions” (discs 2 and 3); Kenny Dorham’s “Round About Midnight at the Café Bohemia” (both discs); Down to the Bone’s “Urban Grooves II” and “Supercharged”; Eldar’s “Live at the Blue Note”. (We’re in the ‘E’s now, but we had to skip Miles Davis’ Complete Columbia Recordings, and we have a slew of Ellington to work through…)

I wish there were some way to better organize the remaining work on the piano, but it seems that everything comes at me sideways, so I’ve been content just tackling whatever job comes my way whenever I think of it. So on Saturday, all I did was punch out all the felt I needed for the damper rods, then reassembled the damper rods. (All 61 of them.) It required a lot of regluing of punchings, as not all of them took to the wood glue. I used a hole puncher to punch out little circles of two sided tape. That worked pretty well. Tedious, but at least the music was good.

Sunday ended up being odd jobs day. I washed all the keys (85 of them). The black ones I just used dish detergent and water, but the white ones, I tried using the Dremel with a kind of scouring pad, but after three keys, it was completely worn out, so I washed them with Soft Scrub with bleach and a good stiff brush, and they came out looking, well not new, but clean and antique. I had to repair six of them, but the end result was a nice looking set of piano keys.

As I washed them, I pulled off all the old felt and the tattered leather strips from the back checks. I took the Dremel and two wire brush fittings to get all the leather and felt remnants off. I’m not really looking forward to putting those suckers back on, but I think if I want to take it slow, I can maybe do that job while watching TV. At least that way, I won’t go insane like I would if I tried to deal with all those tiny felt squares in one sitting.

After completely cleaning the keys, I set about removing the two broken screws that held the center portion of the harp. I used my easy outs to grind away as much of the old screws as possible, then I just drilled until I could insert my screws in the holes. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s feasible and it will look nice.

I briefly sanded the veneer where I tried to cut out the bubble. I’ve decided I’m going to live with it the way it is.

I cut out two large pieces of felt: one for the underside of the damper cover, and one for the damper arms. That was very tricky due to the slight curve of each piece, but it turned out that my felt was almost the exact length when the two pieces were lined up, so I actually did not use much felt to get those two pieces cut out. Gluing them was a little tricky, as I had to use thumbtacks to stretch them to the right size and shape, but they look really nice. I did a good job.

It was definitely a full weekend. Next step is to refinish the piano so I can set about reinstalling the harp. I need a break in the weather to do that, though, as I’m going to want to open the windows to keep those fumes from penetrating the entire house.