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Thread: Do old pianos=tonewood

  1. #1
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    Has anyone reclaimed an old piano for mando parts? If so what kind of pianos are viable? What parts of them?



    Collings MT
    Weber Gallatin Mandocello

    Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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    Hester Mandolins Gail Hester's Avatar
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    I guess it depends on the piano but I parted out a very old piano and got mostly nice poplar for forms, jigs and clamps. It had ivory keys but only a very thin veneer that I use a chuck of occasionally for shims. Most of the outer wood was Cherry veneer. The inner structural wood and larger support pieces were all make up from multiple laminated pieces like a glue-lam-beam. The hammers are good for tapping on wood but how many of those does a person need?

    Be careful if you get to the plate (the metal frame where the strings are) and it's still under tension. That's a bad scene if you have people helping you and they decide to unbolt it under tension, fortunately no one was injured.

    This piano had been left outside and had already begun to be parted out when I got it. It was a lot of work and in the end probably not worth the effort.
    Gail Hester

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    I'm with Gail. Old pianos, spinets, uprights, grands- they are virtually all made of some laminated combination with poplar veneers in the middle of the laminated top, sides, etc. The legs "might" be solid. If so, they're still probably poplar or poplar with a veneer over it. Just my experience.

  4. #4

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    I'm not sure if I am using the proper terminology here, as I am pretty much "piano illiterate", but it is my understanding that the soundboard from a piano can be used to make instrument tops, if you don't mind the occasional random glue-line. #A friend of mine from up in Springfield, TN uses this wood to make his guitar tops, with great results. #I played a guitar made by this guy, and it sounds great. #Recently, he gave me a piece big enough to make a parlor guitar from (along with quarter-cut oak for sides and back), so when I get around to that little project, I will definitely be using this slab of spruce, etc. on the new parlor-ish guitar that will replace a similarly built old Lyon and Healy that our television fell on and demolished last year.

    I would think that if you are lucky enough to get a piano with real ivory key caps, you could make truss rod covers from them. #Also, aren't the black keys on older pianos made of ebony? #We all love ebony! #All kinds of opportunities there! #Bridge saddles come to mind, if nothing else....


    Steve

    www.CumberlandAcoustic.com
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    Registered User mandopaul's Avatar
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    I knew of a luthier that had the soundboard on these old ones; are of solid old growth adirondak, and are well worth it, if you know what to look for.

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    Hester Mandolins Gail Hester's Avatar
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    The sound board on the one I parted out was destroyed in the terrible explosion.
    Gail Hester

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    After being in the piano business for over 20 years, I have seen one all solid wood piano, a 150 year old "square grand piano" which are almost always Brazilian rosewood veneer, this one was solid Brazilian rosewood. It is a very rare thing to come across, about one in 20,000. If anyone seriously wants to try and dismantle an upright piano in the Oakland, CA area, just PM me and I will give you a free 100 year old piano... seriously.

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    Well, I was given the remains of an old (Victorian) upright piano case in the early 1960's. I kept the parts and in the 1990's when I finally got interested in instrument building, there was enough mahogany for 3 guitar side sets and nearly 4 mandolin side sets. The tuning pins are in store for a hammer dulcimer project, and the few black keys I got are all solid ebony and useful for turning endpins, bridges, nuts etc. Maybe I was lucky with that piano......

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    Registered User Martin Jonas's Avatar
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    I dismantled an old 1850s (or so) English upright a couple of years ago, and while much of it was laminate, there were two very nice bits of hardwood: the keyboard lid and the main panel above the keyboard were highly figured solid English walnut. I threw away the laminates bits and the hardware, but kept the hardwood in my garage. Someday I'm going to do something with it. The cut is pretty awkward, though, so making mandolins may be tricky.

    The white keys were useless, but I probably should have kept the black keys -- I'd guess they were ebony and would have come in handy a few times, but I just never thought of it.

    I second the caveat above about the frame and the strings: be very careful while they are under tension. I ended up cutting the strings one by one with a long-handled boltcutter, protective gear, and a great deal of caution.

    Martin

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    Forgot that I also used the keyboard lid hinge for a toolbox lid hinge and made some cam clamps from the laminated wood in the piano. The castors on the base of the piano are now on the base of my portable bandsaw workstation..........

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    Violins and Mandolins Stephanie Reiser's Avatar
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    My neighbor, a scavenger at heart, found an old piano that had been thrown away at the town dump. For some reason he felt compelled to sit there and yank the ivory off of the keys. THat was many years ago, long enough for him to forget why he even bothered to do this. So, when he saw me building a mandolin one day, he thought that the ivory would make for great inlays. I told him "thanks!" and off he went. I use those ivory key tops for my 15th fret cross pieces. And they appear to be actual ivory.
    http://www.stephaniereiser.com then click mandolins

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    I have hundreds of real ivory keytops, I always pull them off before I take a piano to the dump.
    And, yes, lots of pianos are made from solid mahogany and other solid woods, it's just the really beautiful figured woods that you see from the outside is the veneer.

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    wood butcher Spruce's Avatar
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    I got a bunch of large pieces from a 1880's Steinway box piano that are veneered with Brazillian Rosewood....

    I'm gifting them to a very good Selmer-style guitar maker to try to turn them into Selmers...
    After all, the originals were laminated, no?

    Anyone here have any experience doing this?



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    Just a idea, Bruce, but how about cutting it into guitar sized rectangular sections, and re-sawing 1/8" in from the veneer face? That would give a 2 ply piece, and room to thickness the piece from there. Perhaps then add a third veneer inside for stability if it wants to move, afterward.

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    wood butcher Spruce's Avatar
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    Yeah, that's what we have in mind....

    But I'm kinda wondering about bending sides. #Would it de-laminate the sandwich?

    I wanted to even preserve the finish, which has a very cool old vibe to it. #
    The resulting Selmer could be well on it's way to being antiqued with that old funky--but cool--finish on it...

    I doubt it would survive the bending process though, but I guess there's only one way to find out.... #

  16. #16

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    Inspired by peter rowans english pianotop guitar, my #13 and #18 from 1991, walnut bodies with spruce soundboard tops from a piano that arrived in silver city in 1909, the guitar (walnut off the farm here)is heirloom ok, salvaged the soundboard braces to use on it. The sitka braced octave is one of those rare instruments that sounds like it has new strings even when they are several years old, the walnut is salvaged bridge shoring from a '30s chesapeake bay bridge, might have something to do with it.
    Tried to use the upright beech 4x4s (laminated from 2 2x4s)for necks, it was the squirreliest wood ever, used those necks for kindling. Attached the brass silencer button below the keyboard bed to my wifes banjo........
    As far as I know, that brazilian square grand is still for sale in the lobby of the val verde hotel in socorro nm, tho more expensive than a quilted hutch....
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    I took down a 1930's german upright and got all the ebony black keys which make good bridges.

    all the rest was junk
    Quote Originally Posted by stout1
    Now, thanks to Martin and his guitar shaped mandola, I have been stricken with GBMAS, guitar body mandola acqusition syndrome
    hey!! I got my own Syndrome!!!!

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    This is an interesting topic. With the passing of both parents, this winter I've been in charge of the 1903 Hobart/Cable/cabinet grand that I reluctantly learned music on 45/50 years ago. I always said that when the time came I wanted it but with the cost of shipping a still playable piano, worth far less then then the cost of moving it a 1000 miles, I started looking at the wood.

    After playing the piano for old time sake I started looking and thinking that the original piano seat with hinges and everything might be an interesting piece of wood for a mandolin. Uhmm

  19. #19
    Registered User man dough nollij's Avatar
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    I would think that a straight-grained piece of spruce soundboard from an old, well-played piano would be the ideal tonewood for a top. If the theory of "opening up" and "playing in" is true, the vibration of the soundboard should condition the wood to perfection. Are soundboards generally quarter-sawn?

  20. #20
    wood butcher Spruce's Avatar
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    "I would think that a straight-grained piece of spruce soundboard from an old, well-played piano would be the ideal tonewood for a top?"

    Well, the dimensions are all wrong....
    They are usually made from 3" or so wide pieces. #
    That, and runout was not a consideration, so you see some pretty funky stuff under the hood of a lot of pianos, including Steinways....
    You could piece together a top I guess...

    " Are soundboards generally quarter-sawn?"

    Yep.

  21. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by
    But I'm kinda wondering about bending sides. Would it de-laminate the sandwich?
    I once started a discussion here about bending laminated sides. IIRC, Paul H informed me that the Selmer sides were bent one ply at a time into a form and glued up in same. If the veneer was thin enough you might could go this route and not cook the finish, but it wold probably crackle like crazy. I ended up bending my glued-up sides over a hot (but not very hot) pipe. It came a part a little, but you can't tell from the outside and the guitar hasn't sploded yet

    I once had a conversation with a local hardwood guy who inherited some old ebony from a piano maker. He said it was too old (??) and threw it out.

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    Well I gave one of my upright pianos away to Good Morning America. It was about 90 years old and the insides were some kind of lightweight, uninteresting wood with very nice figured mahogany veneer. IMHO, nothing worth building a mandolin out of, even the old spruce soundboard was made of 3" strips joined together and had screw holes through it every few inches. You can see it on TV this Saturday morning, it made some interesting sounds.
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    ISO TEKNO delsbrother's Avatar
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