Day 64 –Sunday, November 28 – Bad planning

Goals: Work on the keys

Music: Chris Connor’s “Chris Connor”; Ben Webster’s “Music for Loving” (both discs); Earl Hines’ “Plays Ellington Vol. 2”.

I had a notion that if I focused, worked hard, and was careful, I would be able to finish the key assembly on Sunday. Unlike the day before, however, I felt I would need a little more time, so I started moving things into the sunroom just before lunch. The first thing I did was put the keys back onto the key rack. Some of them were pretty sticky, mainly on the front end where the lateral slide pads had expanded or slipped out and were sticking on the alignment pins. Some of them I just took out the pad on one side, some of them I widened by shoving a screwdriver in between them. Out of 85 keys, only one needed to be height adjusted, and that was a lowering that was easy to do by removing one punching. No problems there.

I cut five pieces of felt to replace missing backcheck felt, and I trimmed 85 leather strips which I had cut out some months ago. I used my trusty contact cement to attached the felt and leather strips to the backchecks, not very concerned with appearance, though they turn out okay, anyway. (See below.)

While working on the keys, many of the felt pieces that I had attached with double-sided adhesive tape were coming loose, due to the tape sticking to fibers but pulling the fibers away from the actual felt pieces. Double-sided tape was a quick, easy solution, but ultimately ineffective, I decided. Bad planning part one. So, I took them all up and re-glued them. That took about two hours, which is the max drying time on the contact cement, so I brought that in just under the time limit. Then I realized, I was going to have a hard time getting the assembly out of the sunroom and into the dining room, due to the arrangement of doors and temporary walls to contain our ill cat. Bad planning part two. With Mrs. S’s help, I was able to navigate the doors and put the assembly back into the dining room on the work table I have set up in there. Everything looks pretty good:

In the middle of the night last night, I woke up and started thinking about things – as I often due on nights before work after extended periods of time off – and I suddenly realized that in order to attach the hammers properly, the keys have to be slid in under the hammers (I think). That means I’m going to have to take them all off the assembly again anyway. (I might be wrong about the reassembly order. I hope so.) Bad planning part three.

I have to say, however, I feel good about the progress made this past weekend. I’m getting close to major steps in the piano’s reassembly, not the least of which is reattaching the soft arm, which will allow me to finish restringing the piano. (Have to buy some new screws for the arm before I can do that.) I’m hoping, therefore, that the majority of the bad planning issues are out of my system and the remainder of the work will go quickly and smoothly. Time will tell.