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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Sydney
    Posts
    508

    Default I broke up piano yesterday...

    You've always wanted to do that, haven't you.
    We were a three piano family.
    This was one we found dumped in the lane behind the house about 5 years ago. We dragged it into my shed and served its purpose, but it was time for it to go. And old pianos can't even be given away.
    It was 100 years old (google told me that) and I thought there might be some good timber in it. There wasn't. It was made from what looked like cheap and knotty oregon and pine. And they used a lot of glue.
    They was some interesting hardware, but less than I expected.
    I can confirm that the cast iron frame makes up about 80% of the weight of a piano. Not sure what to do with it.
    Piano 1.jpgpiano 2.jpgpiano 3.jpgpiano 4.jpgpiano 5.jpg

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2021
    Location
    Tasmania
    Age
    65
    Posts
    35

    Default

    It is worth hanging onto the keys. The black ones are usually Ebony which is very handy for smaller jobs.

  4. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    lower eyre peninsular
    Age
    74
    Posts
    3,577

    Default

    Put the cast iron frame back in the alleyway, one mans junk is another mans treasure.
    I would love to grow my own food, but I can not find bacon seeds

  5. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Riverhills, Brisbane
    Age
    64
    Posts
    1,216

    Default

    I did this 10 years ago. I picked up an old piano to use as a prop for my wife's photography business, I cleaned & polished it up...BUT unfortunately it went under in the 2011 flood that went through our workshop. I demolished it and couldn't believe how heavy the cast iron frame was. Nearly burst a poofle valve lifting into the van to take it to the scrap metal merchant. I got $12 for the frame.

    Piano5.jpg

  6. #5
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    Townsville. Tropical Nth Qld.
    Posts
    1,243

    Default

    I wish you had asked the question before you destroyed it. Do a google search on piano bookcases. I am going to make one, another of my projects.
    Rgds,
    Crocy.

  7. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    se Melbourne
    Age
    62
    Posts
    2,567

    Default

    Along time ago, I am sure I saw a piano converted into some sort of buffet, where the keys were replaced with a counter.

  8. #7
    Join Date
    Apr 2017
    Location
    Éire
    Age
    39
    Posts
    297

    Default

    There may be some use for some of it.
    Are you sure that the frame is cast iron, and not bronze, although it doesn't have any golden colour, could it be some sort
    of oxidation, guessing not on this one.
    If it was, it could make good stock for making plane parts like lever caps, or thumb planes with.
    spring loaded go bars, or dial indicator thickness gauge for soundboards,

    Obviously the black keys could be ebony or similar.
    The soundboard might be good for those delving into luthiere,
    I wont get into the white keys and what they would be suitable for, I have no clue, but feel obliged not to throw them away.

    Whats left, some of the timber frames are very difficult to dismantle to get use out of, and sometimes infested.
    Could do something with the panels, usually walnut.
    The felt might have some use for something

    That leaves the strings, which can be made into springs, which are very difficult to source.
    Everyone who works on their workshop will likely need some sort of spring.
    Thinking angle poise lamps, latch mechanisms, Cosman'ish bench dogs and no doubt more things.

    All the best
    Tom

  9. #8
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Sydney
    Posts
    2,205

    Default

    Our dumb neighbour smashed one up and left it out for the council clean up.
    The sound board was still connected to the iron frame strings and all.
    The sound board was something nice but it got rained on quicksmart.
    It was a really neat thing, I thought about contacting the local daycare and making a frame for it so the kids could pluck the strings.
    The council guys couldn’t lift it to get it to the truck so I unscrewed the sound board with brace and screwdriver bit whilst the truck did the rest of our dead end street.
    It still didn’t want to come apart so they turned it over and from memory it was bolted.
    All rusted up as the neighbour always puts his collection stuff out a few weeks early.
    The council guys couldn’t stuff around any longer, so left it.
    Long story short, it was out there propped up against his street tree for six months until the next clean up.
    H.
    Jimcracks for the rich and/or wealthy. (aka GKB '88)

  10. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Hobart, Tas
    Posts
    1,211

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by clear out View Post
    It was a really neat thing, I thought about contacting the local daycare and making a frame for it so the kids could pluck the strings.
    That's a great idea. I was going to suggest seeing if a local school wanted it to hang on the wall of their music room. I don't know if non musicians also consider it beautiful, but I certainly do, and would be a shame to scrap it.

  11. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Sydney
    Posts
    508

    Default

    Gee, this aroused some interest - I sense some of you have always wanted to do it.
    I wasn't really asking what to do with it. If I wanted ideas I would have asked before wrecking it - I don't need any more furniture.
    It was so cheaply made, I'm surprised it lasted 100 years. I kept the lid - it's solid timber. and the top. But all other panels were pine? framed with very thin ply.
    Kept the mechanism with the hammers because it looks interesting - I'll move it from place to place for the next few years and likely throw it out.
    Kept the keys. The white ones are oregon? and the white part is thin plastic glued on. I'll also keep them for some years and toss them in a clean up.
    The black keys are morning interesting. As someone said, likely ebony - certainly hard and dense.
    The frame is definitely cast iron - it had been painted gold in places where it was visible. There is a childcare centre up the road, but if that thing toppled over, the coroner would be involved. There was a sound artist from New York living in that building for a couple of years - she was the one keen to drag the piano in from the lane. If I put the frame on FB Marketplace or something, somebody might be interested in taking it.
    One thing that will be useful is a couple of 1200 lengths of timber with rounded spikes. I cut them in thirds and can imagine using them when I'm oiling a breadboard or something so i can do both sides simultaneously i.e. I will rest the bottom when oiled on the spikes while I do the top.

    Piano key.jpgPiano bits 1.jpgpiano bits 2.jpg

  12. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    back in Alberta for a while
    Age
    68
    Posts
    12,006

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by scottbr View Post
    Kept the keys. The white ones are oregon? and the white part is thin plastic glued on. I'll also keep them for some years and toss them in a clean up.
    The black keys are morning interesting. As someone said, likely ebony - certainly hard and dense.
    The thin white "plastic" glued onto the white keys could easily be ivory.

    To my mind worth checking before throwing them away
    regards from Alberta, Canada

    ian

  13. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Sydney
    Posts
    508

    Default

    They possibly are ivory.
    Sad to think an elephant may have given its life for that piano.
    Not sure what I could do with several dozen thinner than wafer pieces of ivory.
    And now I have that terrible song 'Ebony and Ivory' in my head - what on earth was Paul McCartney thinking?

  14. #13
    rrich Guest

    Default

    Oh goodness. . . .

    My parents bough a beach house about 1949. The previous owners left an upright piano in the house. After trying to give the piano away for over a year, the piano was rolled out onto the deck. After sitting there for months and over the winter we moved it out to the beach and burned it. We did manage to get the trash disposal people to take the cast iron frame.

  15. #14
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Brisbane
    Posts
    1,766

    Default

    Yeah maybe, but what can you do with it? Can’t make anything to sell and not enough to remake the elephant.
    There ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk!!

    Tom Waits

  16. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2018
    Location
    Shepparton
    Posts
    508

    Default

    maybe useful as inlay material for people who make instruments with inlay pieces.

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