Build Your Own Piano!!!

By Sharon Grehan-Howes

 

What you will need:

 

Lumber- a lot for a big piano less for a smaller one.

220 piano strings or good quality twine

Pressure bars

Tuning bars

Hitch pins or

Screws and wing nuts.

Felt or an old coat

Cast Iron Plate

Tools

 

The sawn lumber should be be slowly seasoned and dried in a a climate controlled kiln. If you are building a very small piano your oven will probably do just fine.

 

Choose the less good looking wood and glue planks together to build a soundboard. Leave them to dry and season. Before the soundboard can "speak" the wood fibers must be stretched: do this by bending the soundboard and glue a series of ribs to the backside. Then mount the soundboard to a wood backframe.

 

Sound is sent to the soundboard by the vibrating strings through bridges, over which the strings are stretched.

 

You will have to notch the the bridges first. The front of the finished soundboard will have a pinblock where you will mount the tuning pins. As well as treble and bass bridges, but skip this step if you're running out of time.

 

Mount a cast iron plate to the soundboard/backframe assembly. (You will need to put a hole for each tuning pin in the cast iron —you may need need help with that) as well as pressure bars and hitchpins, these will guide and anchor the strings.

 

After the plate is mounted drill holes into the pinblock guided by the holes in place or close enough.

 

Now you move on to stringing— this is usually done by a skilled stringer, so if you have one around by all means use him/her. If not just wing it.

 

Choose the correct string thickness for each pin. Every string end is wound around the top of the tuning pin exactly two and one-half turns or whatever you have time for.

 

When it is completely strung, grab a coffee or a Fresca and let it sit awhile to stabilize.

 

Now just build the outside of the piano. Traditional shapes work best, but an unusually shaped piano is much more interesting.

 

Now you have to produce the keys and hammers Take a block of felt ( or an old coat) and trim the pieces to the desired hammer shape then slice into individual hammerfelts.

 

Wrap and glue the finished hammers to a wooden hammer core. Then you mount them on a small wooden dowel.

 

Everything is then mounted on each of the 88 actions sections, one for each key. If you are building a tiny piano, then use 44 -22 keys.

 

You then saw the piano keys into 88 (or 44-22) from one slab of wood. Carefully glue and trim the black and white keytops to the desired dimensions before installing.

 

Check out you height, spacing and alignment then install the keys and hammers, now you will begin "action regulation" which is a series of fine adjustments, but if you're running late it is not completely necessary.

 

Now a bit of sanding, staining polishing and—

 

VOILA, you've built a piano!!!!!

 

 

©2001 Sharon Grehan-Howes