Rebuild of Schilling and Sons Upright

Sometime around 1959, in Raymond Washington, I had my first piano lesson. It was on this piano: Schilling and Sons #93032!

The Shilling and Sons piano was a product of the Lester Piano Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This piano, #93032, was made in 1926. My mother acquired the piano sometime in the 1940s. My sister Carol, my sister Nadine,  and I all learned to play on the Schilling and Sons. Then in 1972, Mom thought she should have a smaller piano for her dining room. So she bought a spinet piano, and as part of the purchase, she arranged free delivery of the Schilling and Sons from Raymond to Carol’s new home in Vancouver, Washington.  Carol’s three girls: Angela, Heather, and Tiffany all learned to play on this piano too.

In 2008, at the age of 91, Mom left the Raymond home to live in a senior apartment near Carol’s home in Vancouver. Carol selflessly provided near daily care and support during Mom’s time there. In 2011, with gratitude (and a bit of showmanship), I gave Carol a modern baby grand piano for her birthday. I made the surprise piano delivery, from Utah to Washington,  while Carol was on the East Coast for a week. Then I spirited the Schilling and Sons off to Utah to be rebuilt. As it worked out, procrastination and the lack of a plan for that piano meant that it has just been waiting on me these past eight or nine years.

But then, in 2019, the very house we knew as home in Raymond came on the market, and Carol surprised us all by buying it as a family vacation home! It was then obvious what the next stopping point for the Schilling and Sons piano would be!  I anticipate returning the piano to its home in Raymond this Spring.  It is thus that procrastination has ended and the piano rebuild has begun. The work I have outlined for the pianos is this:

• Restringing including new Mapes bass strings
• New hammers from Ronsen Piano Hammer Company
• New dampers
• New hammer butt assemblies
• New key bushings
• Ivory detailing
• Case polish and touch-up
• Full regulation

This video documents the starting point:

(Perhaps I could have improved it with tuning?   Maybe not after 8 years in dry Utah.)

(Yes, I can play.   Here’s more what it will sound like! Thanks for the lessons, Mom.) I began work by destringing the piano, and securing the pinblock.  This is a three-quarter plate piano.  These pianos have a propensity for the pinblock to separate from the back posts.  That had occurred with this piano many years ago.  In fact, as a child I remember my dad working with Mr. Peck, the piano tuner, to drill through the pinblock and back posts to pull it together with through bolts.   The job was done while the piano was under tension and the result was less than satisfactory.  I remember Mr. Peck saying the next year that he had hoped for better tuning stability.   While the piano was unstrung, I epoxied the gaps in the pinblock attachment.   The gap closed up considerably while tightening the previously installed through bolts .  I’m expecting a good result in tuning stability. In preparation for stringing, I removed the bottom board and restored its components.   I found that the board was split.   I joined a new piece of hardwood to make it structurally what it was in 1926.  Photos below document the work  on the bottom board and associated trapwork.