Today we received our new grand piano tilter from Moon Dog Manufacturing. The yellow bracket thingey bolts in place of the lyre(pedal) assembly. Then the piano can be easily rolled onto it’s side. I’ll be sure to post some pics the first time we use it.
Left Pic – Broken String Bass End Pin with part of it still stuck inside
Right Pic – How else would you get out a broken bass end pin….a valve slide expander, of course…
Left Pic – I just slid it in, tightened the knob to expand the end a bit, and pulled the broken piece out
Right Pic – Replacement end pin is too big; it will need to be trimmed down
Left Pic – Chucked up in the lathe and slowly trim down the taper
Right Pic – Checking with the calipers
Left Pic – almost ready to go…final fitting was done with a band sander
This flute came in with the A Key bent backwards so far, the foot caught on the lip of the tone hole, and subsequently broke, damaging the tone hole lip as well.
Left Pic – Damage to the rear of the A tone hole
Right Pic – A better viewpoint of the damage
Left Pic – After rolling the lip back over, I still have a high spot at the rear of the tone hole
Right Pic – Using a small tone hole file, I lower the high spot
Left Pic – High spot gone
Right Pic – Now to fix the broken foot on the A Key
Left Pic – Ready for brazing
Right Pic – All brazed, ready for cleanup
All fixed and ready to go
Left Pic – Ramp and 6-wheel dolly ready to go
Right Pic – Dolly in front of piano, carpet runner in position
Left Pic – Piano lifted onto dolly; Gary making sure it doesn’t go anywhere
Right Pic – Out into hallway; tight fit, had to come into foyer with front door closed, spin into hallway, open door, then out the door.
Left Pic – Out the front door, ready to come down ramp
Right Pic – Out in the driveway, ready to move into trailer
Left Pic – In the trailer, all ready for padding and strapping in
Right Pic – Padded, strapped in, ready to go
Delivery is basically this process in reverse. Like anything else , if you have the right equipment, it isn’t that complicated.
We recently had this guitar in for an action adjustment and intonation.
Left Pic – Damage to the upper branch on a Yamaha Euphonium. The brace dented the tubing when the damage occurred. There’s no easy access to this area, without unsoldering major parts of the horn, and the brace can’t be re-soldered with the dent in there.
Right Pic – I’ve soldered a sax strap ring into the dented area
Left Pic – Using my slide puller(a soft rope with a weight), I’ve looped the rope through the strap ring. Using the weight, I can now “snatch” the dent back up into roughly it’s original position.
Right Pic – The dent is now “mostly” out. I don’t have to have it our totally, just enough so the brace will reach.
Left Pic – I’ve removed the strap ring, and now am soldering the brace back into position. By removing most of the dent, I’m able to solder the brace without any strain(pulling the pieces together). Soldering something back “strained” almost always leads to the solder joint failing down the road.
Right Pic – All done
Left Pic – Crack in trumpet leadpipe
Right Pic – Small piece of sheet brass cut to fabricate patch
Left Pic – Patch cut to diamond shape
Right Pic – Patch annealed(heated red hot) to soften it for forming around leadpipe
Left Pic – Patch soldered on
Right Pic – All cleaned up, buffed and spot lacquered
The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum rented our Baldwin Grand for their big fundraiser. Freddy Cole, Nat King Cole’s brother was the featured entertainer.
Left Pic – Finger button broken, leaving the broken threaded part in the stem
Right Pic – Holding the valve in a valve lapping block so I can drill out broken piece
Left Pic – I’m using a left twist drill bit(it cuts opposite of a normal bit) to begin to drill out the broken piece
Right Pic – The advantage of the left twist drill is, sometimes, it will catch and spin out the broken piece, as it it did here.
Left & Right Pic – All out
After rough cutting (with a belt sander) the feet of the bridge, I use this homemade jig to fine tune the radius on the bottom of the feet to match the contour of the top. After finishing the feet, I’ll contour the top and thin the bridge to it’s final shape.
Joel Smith Music 