How Much To Repair Piano Body

Anyone whose pianoforte has been damaged in an accident or when being moved knows the inconvenience of having to deal with getting its damaged stop repaired. For this article, we interviewed two experts in pianoforte finish repair — Sally Phillips and Gregory Cheng — almost what'due south involved in addressing unlike types of damage.

Refinishing vs. Repair

Before and afterward photos of veneer replacement on the arm of a chiliad piano past Sally Phillips

The first thing they explained is the difference betwixt refinishing and repair, the latter also known as touch-upward.

In refinishing, all or a substantial portion of the piano'southward original finish is removed, either by sanding it down or by chemically stripping it off. If the finish is completely removed, the pores of the underlying forest veneer are and then filled, the veneer is stained (if a wood color), and the new finish is sprayed on. Many coats of finish are applied, each coat lightly sanded earlier the adjacent is applied, and the final glaze is hand rubbed or polished to a specified sheen, from satin to high polish.

With repair, the original cease is left in place, only the damaged expanse is congenital upwards with filler, new veneer, and/or multiple coats of cease, and so sanded and polished to match the side by side undamaged finish.

With refinishing, any impairment completely disappears. With repair, a good touch-up artist should be able to make the harm unnoticeable by anyone previously unaware of the damage who looks at the piano at a normal distance in normal lighting. However, the repair volition often exist discernible to someone aware of the impairment and its location, and who looks closely enough in good light.

Before and after photos of damaged arm of a 1000 piano by Gregory Cheng

The restorer must decide, based on toll and expected results, whether information technology's better to strip and refinish the unabridged part or attempt to repair it. In some instances, the most price-effective repair is but to replace the part.

The time it takes to perform finish repairs varies with the type and location of damage. Nearly repairs tin be done in the dwelling in two to four hours. In some instances, however, it's meliorate to take the damaged part back to the shop to repair it under more controlled conditions. Parts such equally fallboards (cardinal covers), music desks, and pedal lyres are easily removed; a chapeau can be transported if the technician has a big enough vehicle or can get the help of a piano mover. Legs tin can exist temporarily removed while the technician is in the home, but it's not safe to leave a m piano on a jack or stand for a long menses. It'southward ameliorate not to move the entire pianoforte to the store for finish repair — whatsoever time a piano is moved risks additional damage to it — but sometimes information technology's unavoidable.

Piano chiffonier construction varies significantly with the type of pianoforte, its intended employ, and its price. All cabinet parts — panels, rim, fallboard, music rack, lid, etc. — are covered past a sparse veneer of wood, about one/sixteen″ thick, on which is applied either a solid-color finish — usually ebony (black), but occasionally white or another color — or a clear wood finish, the latter used with fancy veneers such as walnut, figured mahogany, or rosewood. The core material of these parts, nether the veneer, tin be of a number of materials, depending on the cost and quality of the piano. Typically, odd numbers of wood layers are glued together, the grain of alternating layers running perpendicular to each other to minimize warping. In the non–tone-producing parts, still, especially in pianos designed for abode use, these layers can include medium-density fiberboard (MDF), or even foamboard or cardboard. The harder the cadre textile under the cease, the easier it is to get a consequent finish over the surface of the cabinet part. The softer the material, the more easily it's crushed and the harder information technology is to repair.

Types of Finish

Lacquer

Lacquer refers to a number of clear or colored coatings that dry out by solvent evaporation. Nitrocellulose lacquer finishes for pianos began to become popular in the 1920s. Although now largely replaced past polyester finishes (see below), lacquer finishes are nevertheless used on some high-stop pianos, on some college-end models of consumer-grade pianos, or past special order. They're relatively like shooting fish in a barrel to employ and can be polished to any sheen, from matte to high gloss. The elegant merely understated advent of a manus-rubbed satin lacquer finish blends well with antiques and older homes, and high-gloss lacquer finishes take an apparent visual depth unmatched by modern finishes.

The softness of lacquer, however, ways that information technology can exist easily scratched — even a moving coating can go out scratches or imprints — but it's also perchance the most forgiving of finishes. It'southward common for a cease technician to follow a freshly delivered lacquer-finished piano to remove moving-pad and other minor marks and bring the piano back to its showroom finish.

Mitt-rubbed satin lacquer finishes should never be polished in a circular motion, as that destroys the parallel micro-scratches in the finish — and it's the reflection of low-cal past those tiny scratches that creates the satin-like appearance. Always polish in the direction of the grain of the wood veneer or, if an ebony finish, in the direction of the micro-scratches. If you lot're dusting your piano, offset with a Swiffer duster and dust in the direction of the grain before applying any cleaner, as the dust alone tin scratch a lacquer finish if rubbed beyond the grain. Never use household cleaners on a lacquer cease. Cory Products (www.corycare.com), also available from Allied Piano (www.alliedpiano.com), makes a variety of cleaners peculiarly for pianos, including a satin-sheen cleaner that gives great results. Don't spray a cleaner directly on the piano. Instead, spray it onto a clean, soft, microfiber rag, then wipe.

Polyester

Polyester finishes have been popular in the piano industry worldwide since the 1950s. Most mod pianos accept a polyester finish, either high-gloss or satin — even wood-veneered pianos accept a topcoat of clear high-gloss or satin polyester.

Polyester makes a highly durable finish that resists well-nigh scratches. Information technology tin be sanded and polished to remove minor scratches, and tin exist buffed with a powered buffing wheel, equally in the manufactory, to create a high-gloss shine. Polyester seals forest improve than lacquer, and resists water and most solvents; its immovability makes polyester the best option for a high-gloss finish on near pianos.

A disadvantage of polyester is its brittleness — it can cleft from impact or being dropped. When that happens, the damaged expanse develops a blueprint that looks like broken glass, and any cleaved or loose polyester must exist completely removed before repairs can exist made. Polyester can also crack when exposed to extreme temperature changes, but advances in polyester finishing techniques and greater intendance past piano movers accept nearly eliminated this equally a problem.

Even when information technology's technically possible, information technology'due south more often than not non economically practical to strip off big areas of polyester finish, but it can exist buffed and polished many times over the life of the piano. For surface repairs, polyester more than hands hides impairment than other finish material because information technology'due south applied more than thickly. Ebony polyester finish comes in many subtle variations of "blackness." Expert furniture-repair technicians are skilled at color matching, and accept access to dyes, pigments, and manufacturers' colour formulas; commonly they tin can match whatever variation of "black," and whatever wood colors.

Polyurethane

An "off-the-gun" polyurethane stop is a satin finish applied with a spray gun, often already mixed with color or stain, and not manus rubbed afterward it cures. The terminate contains an epoxy-like curing agent that dries to a very difficult surface. Though this blazon of cease has gotten much better looking in recent years, information technology doesn't have the elegant wait or sheen of a hand-rubbed finish, and then is used on modestly priced instruments and for less costly refinishing jobs. The disadvantage of a polyurethane finish is that information technology's very difficult to repair — when sanded, it tends to separate easily from the wood, making even simple repairs challenging, and difficult to entirely conceal. Information technology's often more cost-effective to replace the damaged part.

Historical Finishes

Over the years, the piano industry has experimented with or used a number of different types of stop, the best known existence shellac and varnish. Shellac, used before almost 1860, was practical in many layers, using a special rubbing pad lubricated with one of a variety of oils in a technique known as French polishing. This produced a beautiful only very soft and delicate finish that hands showed harm from water or alcohol. Varnish, used from the 1860s to the 1920s, was thicker than shellac, and filled the grain faster — but it tended to darken with age and exposure to sunlight, producing a crazed or "alligatored" look.

By now, well-nigh original shellac and varnish finishes have completely anile, or have get crazed across most or all of the piano'south surfaces, and major repairs to these finishes aren't possible with the techniques and materials commonly used past today's repair technicians. Attempts to rejuvenate crazed finishes with solvents that polish out the crazing tend to be unsuccessful considering too much dirt has accumulated and become embedded in the old cease. Refinishing the entire piano would exist the best pick, but considerations of cost vs. the value of the pianoforte ordinarily argue against that. Typically, if a pianoforte's shellac or varnish cease needs refinishing, the instrument probably likewise needs to exist completely rebuilt or replaced.

Types of Damage

Shallow Scratches

Scratches that become only office way through a manus-rubbed satin lacquer finish, and non into the woods itself, are typically the easiest to repair — either by sanding or rubbing out the area, or past building up lacquer in the scratch, sanding information technology smooth, then rubbing information technology out. To avoid hand rubbing, some technicians use a spray-on lacquer that dries to a satin sheen.

Shallow scratches in polyester can usually be buffed out and eliminated with special polishing compounds. Slightly deeper scratches may need to exist opened slightly to accept polyester, then sanded and buffed to friction match the sheen of the surrounding undamaged area.

Deep Gouges, Dents, or Fries

Gouges that remove a lacquer finish down to the unstained veneer are easy to repair with fillers, and lacquer or hard-wax burn down-in sticks. Burn down-in sticks — brusk lengths of solid lacquer or wax that melt when heated — are used to fill dents or scratches. They're available in many colors, and can be mixed to achieve other shades. A faux woods grain tin exist painted on to match the surrounding area; the area and so is sealed with lacquer and rubbed out or hand buffed.

In repairing polyester finish that has been gouged all the manner down to the unstained veneer, the exposed wood is colored, faux-grained if necessary to lucifer the surrounding area, and sealed; a polyester topcoat is then applied, sanded, and buffed. Some repair technicians fill gouges in polyester with lacquer fire-in sticks, followed by a sprayed-on high-gloss polyurethane cease, merely the experts we consulted said that filling gouges in polyester with polyester finish makes for the best repairs.

With both lacquer and polyester finishes, if the area is dented rather than gouged, it may be necessary to showtime create a larger gouged area downwardly to the forest, so fill it in. Chips or gouges that also take off layers of veneer beginning require edifice upwards with wood or epoxy that can take the cease.

Impairment to Corners and Edges

When veneer on the corner of the cabinet is damaged, oft the best repair is to inlay a small piece of new veneer, or build upward the area with wood epoxy, to restore the strength of the corner before repairing the stop. Use of new veneer or forest epoxy is especially important on a grand pianoforte when the damaged corner is on the bottom of the bass end. This is the corner that the piano'south unabridged weight rests on when it's placed on its side during a move, and softer putties, fillers, and burn-in sticks only aren't hard plenty to bear that sort of pressure.

Impairment in the Center of a Lid

Damage to the middle of a grand lid or rim is hard to hide, and repairing it so that it'south completely invisible may be across the skill of the average repair technician. In such cases, a decision may exist made to completely refinish the hat of a piano finished in lacquer, or to supercede a chapeau finished in polyester. These decisions must as well consider the refinisher's ability to match the stain color and forest grain of the rest of the piano. Withal, we've seen examples of perfect repairs to lids and rims by expert repair technicians — it tin be done.

Sun Damage

Sun damage results when a woods-grain finish is exposed to direct sunlight for long periods. Typically, when the front lid of a k piano is folded back over the rear portion, the sunday bleaches or fades the exposed areas, which then don't lucifer the unexposed areas. Dominicus damage is usually a bleaching of the wood stain under the finish, rather than impairment to the stop itself. It can exist repaired but by re-staining the wood, which requires first stripping off the onetime stop, then, after staining, refinishing with the appropriate topcoat.

Avoiding Finish Bug

• Virtually harm to a pianoforte's finish can be avoided past non using the pianoforte as a shelf. Placing objects on the piano, such as picture frames, knickknacks, and vases — even when these rest on pads — risks scratches and h2o damage to the stop.
• The next-most-common source of harm occurs when moving a pianoforte. This is not a do-information technology-yourself project. Hire a company that specializes in piano moving — your local piano dealer tin recommend one.
• Don't place a piano in directly sunlight. Over time, this will fade the finish, and can also create problems with tuning stability.

Source: https://www.pianobuyer.com/article/piano-finishes-and-finish-repair/

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