Disassembling an old upright piano

[Consul]

I have an old Grinnell Brothers upright, I think dated to somewhere around 1920. They are a valuable brand in playable condition, most of the time. However, ours has been modified with part of the cabinet cut away just above the hammers in order to make a shelf about six inches or so down from the top of the piano. This was done to twelve Grinnells here in the Detroit area, and this mod sadly renders this piano of no value to anyone.

After several attempts to give it away, one of which would have cost us serious money, we've decided to disassemble it and reclaim as much wood and hardware as possible. I know I have my eye on the side panels (2-inch thick solid hardwood) and keeping the soundboard and strings intact so I can bring that down into the basement for recorded effects (you can make a really cool reverb with these things). I'd also like to keep a few of the hammers to use as mallets.

However, there is a lot on this piano, specifically the specialized mechanisms and the keys, which nobody here has use for. So I'm wondering if parts like this would be usable to a piano repair tech, and if so, if it's possible to salvage these parts without damaging them.

Any piano guys out there? Thank you!

 

[okgb]

Yeah, you can't giveaway Piano's or Organs on the local Kijiji here
A local tech friend says he tries to talk people out of fixing them up to sell

Scrap metal ?

 

[Consul]

Oh, I'm salvaging and repurposing everything I can. I was just hoping the more specialized bits could be put to use by someone else.

 

[Curtis]

I feel your pain.  Years ago myself and wifey bought a clapped-out upright in order to turn it into a funky stereo cabinet - looks like a piano from the outside, but opens up to reveal the hifi and CD collection.  Got most of the way through the conversion before we decided that it didn't look right with our decor, and now it languishes under the house with no home to go to!  Maybe turning the case into some kind of furniture would be cool if that's your thing though.  Drinks cabinet?  Fish tanks?  Bookcase?

If the construction is anything similar to ours the hammers will all sit in a iron sub-frame that lifts out of the case after undoing a couple of thumbscrews.  The keys have no mechanical connection to the hammers, they're just levers that push up underneath each of the hammers and cause them to swing forward.  The keybed will probably slide out from the front of the piano after removing half a dozen screws or so.  Each key pivots on a steel slug fitted to the keybed, and they may be individually removed by lifting them upwards.  Our proper working piano has a couple of busted hammers, and I thought I could perhaps swap them for a couple of the hammers taken from the donor piano, but sadly they're of a different design and wouldn't work.  I suspect that each manufacturer builds their own mechanisms to suit and very few are interchangable.  Will probably have limited use to a piano tech unless he's restoring the exact same model that you're donating.

Upright piano cases rarely use solid timber.  Plywood and veneers abound.  Double-check the sides are actually solid hardwood before you get too carried away.  The soundboard on all but the cheapest uprights is probably spruce, so may be useful if you want some fancypants timber for a DIY acoustic instrument build.  I have heard of some people building mandolin tops out of piano soundboards, but it's a lot of effort to get the timber out, separated from the various frames and bridges, cleaned up and thicknessed down.  Framing material is probably oak 2x4-type stuff, but is it really worth the effort to dismatle a piano for such short lengths?

 

[okgb]

I've seen the occasional piano or organ sitting by someone's house trash and of course the garbagemen
don't take it so they get weathered by the elements kinda like living art . I always get sucked in checking
out the organs for tubes

 

[Consul]

Having already partially disassembled the piano, all I can say is, if it's not solid timber, this manufacturer did a really, really amazing job at faking it. There's no way this is a veneer. Remember, this one dates to somewhere around 1918. They built things better back then. Grinnell Brothers was a highly regarded local brand up through 1960.

 

[Steve Jones]

Be very careful with the frame. The tension on it can exceed 20 tons, and it is brittle cast iron under compression. Keep your face away from it when you remove it, and don't drop or bang it when you are carrying it. Treat it like a little bomb.

 

[mad.ax]

As Curtis said, the soundboard is most probably spruce. I bet your local luthier would be interested.
90yo dry spruce is not something one can find easily nowadays....

Axel

 

[Consul]

Except I want to keep the frame and soundboard as a unit to make a reverb. From the sound of things, I'm thinking it's not worth the effort to save the extra pieces. Once I have the whole thing broken down, I'll call around to local piano places.