Know-a Piano

08/10/2025

When Reshaping hammers, I leave a little bit of the old grooves, to see where the hammers are not striking all three piano strings. This picture shows how some hammers are hitting all three strings, while others are only hitting two. The hammers need to be aligned to the strings. After I shift the hammed left or right as needed, then I’ll sand off the remainder of the grooves on those hammers so that they don’t interfere with hammer/string contact.

08/10/2025

Finished product

05/04/2025

I’m leaving this coat of Tung Oil a little thicker…we’ll see how it does. I like the glossy look, but there’s problems if you leave it too thick.

04/30/2025

04/24/2025

Last major piece to scrub down on this early 20th century Steinway grand, for sale when complete.

06/05/2024

🎙️I’m on a piano podcast. Check it out.📻

I thought you might be interested in the podcast I am being featured on. It’s called the Piano Tech Radio Hour podcast. Each week they have a live show on zoom featuring interesting folks in the piano industry. I recorded this a while ago but it’s now being released as a podcast episode.

Much of the interview revolved around my astrophotos, so it's better to watch it on YouTube than to listen to the audio. However, there's still lots of interesting philosophical discussion on audio. The discussion mixed themes of pianos, astronomy and a little bit of astrology.

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/live/vvUtMbbv-bc?si=VmMkGfdf3cjS8cCT

Website:
https://www.pianotechradio.com/195

Apple podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/piano-tech-radio-hour/id1513823904?i=1000657388753

If you're interested in piano things, you might also want to check out these links on social media.

Podcast: https://www.pianotechradio.com
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/pianotechmasterclass
Instagram: https://instagram.com/pianotechmasterclass
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pianotechmasterclass
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/piano-technicians-masterclasses/
Substack (Blog): https://pianotechniciansmasterclass.substack.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/
Twitter (X): https://x.com/pianotechclass
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiIJEA9pToGft6fdfZaxu?si=6108418dfaa24b4a

Thanks to Eathan Janney, a piano tech and entrepreneur, for hosting me.

Piano Tech Radio Hour live broadcast with special guest Noah Frere! Sign up for information and links to livestreams before they happen at bit.ly/joinptrh.

04/17/2024

Recovering flapper pneumatics in Daniel Bussell piano shop.

03/12/2024

When hammers get old and grooved from striking the strings a hundred thousand times, they can be reshaped by sanding them first with coarse sandpaper, and eventually finishing with fine. This makes an immediate and pronounced improvement in the tone. The piano is SO much more enjoyable to play afterwards.

12/19/2023

Steinway Grand Refurbish

Now that the teaching semester is over, I have more time for working on this ~century-old Steinway grand I'm refurbishing. The refinishing is difficult and time-consuming. It's hard getting into the scrollwork crevices to remove all the old finish. Here's a small tool I made out of a coat hanger to help with that. I couldn't find ANYthing for sale anywhere that resembled this tool at all...

06/13/2023

Rebuilding the "Stack" of an old player piano.

12/02/2021

I tried scraping of the old finish without stripper. It worked great! Here I am using a curved metal scraper with various radii of curvatures to fit the fallboard.