Days 92 and 93 – Sunday, September 4 and Monday, September 5 – Good progress

Goals: Work on it

Music: Doing some tuning, so none.

I did a second coat of acrylic on the mother-of-pearl inlay because the first coat did not come out very even. The second coat didn’t either, because it is basically impossible to get the acrylic even across the board, because it is so long and narrow and because it drips over the edge. I got it pretty close to what it needs to be, and I’m leaving it at that.

Then I got to work on the strings. I had to re-shim about 25 pins, but that’s all I did. I did not mess with bigger pins and whatnot. If a pin was loose, I shimmed it, re-strung the existing string and cleaned it up as best I could, then tuned it. Two days of that, and the strings are completely tunable, and, as of this moment, in tune. That’s as far as I’m going with that.

Next is to get the keys working. I’m very close to settling for a majority of the keys working, as opposed to a fully working piano, so if some keys are stubborn and do not work, there is some chance I may talk myself out of working on them and simply leave them dead in their tracks. I really just want to get the piano looking nice and trade it to somebody for a sweet black lacquered baby grand. There is still an outside chance I will end up with a bar or a desk, if I meet any severe adversity before the end of the project.

Inching closer to completion, and I must say, it feels good – again.

Day 91 – Saturday, Sept. 3 – Because I just can’t put it off any longer

Goals: Get the artistic stuff on the accent piece finished

Music: Charlie Parker’s “Complete Jazz at Massey Hall” and Complete Verve Master Takes, Discs 1 and 2.

There’s just no getting around it. Whether Mrs. S. cares if we ever get the dining room back or not, I for one am definitely sick of having this piano project hanging over me. I decided not to make excuses and to just get back to work.

Since I didn’t want to tangle with the strings, which is off-putting in general and particularly hard work in specific, I decided to exhilarate my artistic side and work on the mother-of-pearl inlay on the fascia board. I touched up the gold paint, having already done the black paint before the project went into hibernation, and I drew in some leaves and flowers to make it look nice. I poured a layer of clear acrylic over it, and that made a bit of a mess. I shook most of it off and left it to dry.

This morning I checked the board and the acrylic didn’t turn out bad, but it isn’t great either (pretty much like everything on the piano). So, I will try to put a few more touches on the board and then one more coat of acrylic and then we’ll see about the strings.

It’s supposed to rain today, which means I won’t be able to smoke the ribs I prepped, which means I won’t have to spend a ton of time cooking, running back and forth to the grill, etc. So I’ll be cooking in the oven and have plenty of time to work on the piano. Hopefully, I’ll make some genuine progress today.