Rebuilding & Refinishing

Rebuilding Our passion in this business is bringing back a 'deferred maintenance', or just 'a very old' piano to its musical glory! Many of the pianos we restore are family heirlooms. The owners prefer to keep it in the family. There is a fine economic line in determining if a piano is worth restoring. Basically, can you restore it for less than replacing it? In many cases, you own a piano waiting to be reborn! The "Classic American Pianos" were manufactured when true entrepreneurs were striving to make great instruments. The manufacturers' 'bottom line' was the greatness of their pianos, not necessarily the stockholders' dividend. Unfortunately, many manufacturers went out of business because they were building truly great pianos without a comprehensive marketing plan to support the manufacturing expense. There are countless old pianos that will 'sing' better than the one you would buy to replace it. We will honestly help you determine if your heirloom piano is worth restoring. Many are not! Many more than you think are worth restoring. Refinishing Is your old piano an antique or a musical instrument? Does it look like something from a garage sale? Would you like it to look better, look new? Looking as it does, what is it worth? Refinishing will go a long way towards establishing 'value' for your piano. Of course it must play well, but it must look good, too. Is it scratched, dinged, faded, stained, 'alligatored'? Traditionally, in the piano rebuilding business, nitrocellulose lacquers were used for refinishing. We still use these products, but we have been introducing water borne lacquers to the refinishing process. Some applications are more appropriately matched with one or the other. It gives us the versatility to match the finish results with your needs and expectations, and budget. We can provide finish quality from hand rubbed clear gloss to gorgeous satin ebony. We perform the necessary cabinet/veneer repairs to make your new finish 'seamless.' We polish, replate, or replace all cabinet hardware as needed. We can make your piano look like new. We will also install your piano's original decal design. Soundboards A soundboard will experience 12 to 15 tons of pressure on it from the downbearing of the strings. And while the material used, which is solid spruce, has the incredible strength to support it, the pressure on it over decades can take its toll on the cells in the wood by having them collapse. The soundboard will loose its crown and consequently, its tone and resonance. Despite what some say, a piano will NOT lose any of its value by replacing the original soundboard with a new one. In fact, the difference in sound that a new soundboard will produce is like night and day and can bring up the piano's value as a musical instrument. When we duplicate the old soundboard for replacement, we use a solid spruce board and quarter sawn ribs that are precrowned. If you want to achieve the ultimate in tone for your restored piano, a new soundboard is essential. Key Recovering Many older pianos have badly damaged or missing keytops. We provide this recovering service to tuner/technicians in the trade as well as to our retail customers. We also replace or refinish sharps and rebush keys. We masterfully repair your piano's balance rail holes to eliminate 'chucking.'