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May be so it was.
I've grand respect feel when i'm looking yours fotos and I'm hearing sound yours ESTONIA video!
HUGE good JOB!

I'm surprised you are not replacing the pin block. Such a critical piece.

We really hope the final result will worth the tremendous effort! Get yourself some popcorns while the magic (tragic?) unfolds!!


Our idea was to add a bit of color to the piano, and that couldn't really be acheived anywhere but the veneer rim. We also chose the dark walnut burl style over the more commonly used reddish mahogany (Yamaha and Steinway) and lighter wheat color (Fazioli, Steingraeber, and even the new Estonia). The technician used rubber adhesive to attach the veneer sheets, which can be reheated if becomes buckled or detached. Therefore, we hope it won't be a problem, unless the piano gets exposed to too much humidity....that might be another story for another time...


Perhaps it's better for us to re-examine the pinblock, now or never, before it goes under the iron frame permanently.

Here are some photos....

The overall look of the pinblock:







As you can see, it is in pretty good shape for a piano that is almost half a century old. Nevertheless, if you take a closer look at it, as in this picture, there is a visible crack or split in the laminated wood....



....which, once we flipped over to the underside, there has already been repair works done to fix this particular issue...



Only one other area developed a similar hairline split:



Our technician had already inspected the pinblock in person, and his suggestions were to apply wood glue to areas where the cracks or splits developed, then tighten using a wood clamp.

That would pretty much be the only thing we can do for now. There isn't any professional piano rebuilders in Thailand who would actually be able to accurately duplicate the pinblock, and we suspect wood-working factories wouldn't be able to do it either. I would let you all evaluate the situation here and tell us how you think, because if we really need to have the pinblock replaced, the piano might have to be postponed to be finished around this time of next year, since we have to leave the country in 1.5 months, only to return in May!!

Regards,

SK

+1

I am far from an expert on this but think that replacing the pin block is the only way to go.


Maybe email the factory and see if they can get you one for a reasonable price.

Whether you need to replace the pin block or not could depend on whether it held before you disassembled the piano.

If you can get decent pin block material, making a new block should not be that difficult, just time consuming.

The factory has summer holiday in July.

Not an expert, but you should wait till you get a new pin block.

I would change the pin block too. There are probably people you could send your pin block to and have them duplicate it. You might still need to adjust it slightly when fitting it to your piano. Just make sure they are extremely accurate with their dimensions and drilling. CNC machines can help with a lot of this. I think sending it away would give a better result than getting a local woodworker with no pin block experience to attempt it.

Oh please put a new block in it, just hold up the restoration until you can get one.

Its like restoring a classic car and ignoring the engine.

There are three possible outcomes when you replace a pinblock (or do any other major replacement):

1. It can be better.
2. It can be worse.
3. It can be the same.

There are factors that influence the odds of any one of those being the result. Experience is one. Not having experience skews the expectation heavily towards outcome 2. Of course, if you have lots of experience and you still do something poorly, that skews it even more towards 2.

Whether there was a problem before you started is a factor. If there was, the odds of outcome 1 improve, but 2 and 3 are still possibilities.

Factor 3 is only a possibility if you discount the time and money that it costs, otherwise it is the same as 3.

There are a lot of ways that one can end up with a worse job by doing more. They can be mitigated with experience and learning, but a concert grand is probably not the best piano to use to get experience.

Well that answers that question. Looks like the original block is the way to go.

how do I post some pictures from my computer ? I am sure you guys will like it , its about the Estonia

Yours is an admirable and certainly interesting job but it needs saying again and again that the "Estonia" of old, even when fully restored, have nothing to do with their present day counterparts. I know these pianos for over 25 years and have personally played on some of this and earlier vintage myself. Any 9' grand has the potential of impressive sound, especially when being rebuilt. Hoping you will enjoy the ride & the experience!
Norbert

This is a really inspiring thread! I'm enjoying keeping up with it.

As BDB pointed out, if the original pin block can hold a tune, then it may not need to be replaced.

The usual rationale to go ahead and replace it while the piano is opened up is because to do it later means redoing a bunch of work, when the cost to add it in now is marginal. But... you're looking at a couple of do-it-yourselfers who are tearing this thing down and putting it back together themselves. That significantly minimizes the downside risk of needing to do it later. They just do it themselves then, like they'd do it now.

The upside is that they avoid the extra costs/hassle of doing it now, and be playing it that much sooner.

Also, if the pin block becomes a problem at some point after reassembly, there are other means to address problems that can often breathe new life into an old pin block anyway (e.g. C.A. glue).


Anyway, again, awesome thread.

This is the official way to link pictures.

Alternatively, you can link to pictures already online by putting its URL in between [img] [/img] tags unless the picture hosting site disallows the links.

I am enjoying watching this thread as well.

seldom cardboard shim too

Hi all!

Apologies for the long absence....but so many...MANY......MANY.....MANY things have happened since then, and we didn't know how to even start posting! Anyhow, thanks for all the comments, suggestions, and information regarding the pinblock!

Let's see....how do we start here?

Regarding the pinblock, it's quite a bit of a coincidence how the things we did to it actually went the way you guys recently suggested on here, and we didn't even have time to log in and look at the thread! What we did first was consulting a furniture builder about replicating the old block, and both him not having time and us realizing the impossibility (quality-wise) of such work led to this idea being eliminated. We did look into pinblock manufacterers, and although it's the one and only way, it takes time to make, not to mention the cost. What DBD has said is very true; sometimes doing more doesn't get you a better result, so we started re-evaluating the situation of the old pinblock.

Going back before the piano was moved here, when we first tested it (see the Youtube link from earlier posts), we tuned it for the first time in almost a year of neglect. It has since been holding tune pretty well. The only problem was the tuning difficulty itself. Some strings couldn't be fine-tuned, but they held their pitches. We have a video of some more proper playing recorded on the piano just before it was disassembled, and we'll try to get it posted soon.

One thing we forgot to mention earlier is that we initially planned to use larger pins, since it's no good to use the original size after their removal. And we indeed got new pins that measure 7.20 mm in diameter, compared to the original 7.00 mm. Although they are a tad shorter in height, they will work perfectly well, as confirmed by two piano techs we consulted with. We think this will definitely help with better holding of the old pinblock.

Here is a picture of the new pins vs old:



Nope...they weren't burned!

For the pinblock itself, we solved the tiny splits with CA glue and wood clamps:









Now that the pinblock is fixed, let's move on to the iron-plate. As you can see in the previous photos, the Estonia iron plate did not have any decorative letterings on it, as seen on most pianos. As always, we decided to do something to it.

The plate design has an area towards the tail that's suspiciously large enough to contain a lettering, so we duplicated the Estonia letters on the fallboard (which to our eyes is a very neat Art Deco style) on Adobe Illustrator. But the letters alone aren't enough; we sketched up some designs for a logo! The layout is similar to that of Steinway, but we emphasized on the Deco style subtly evident in the piano's overall design itself. This is what we came up with!



The double-headed eagle contains engraved details of the year the company was founded and the city of manufacturing. Perhaps inspired by its association with many European cultures, and the symmetrical shape of the wings, the Deco flare, sharp edges.....what-knots. But that's what we decided on using for the piano! Hint: this will also be used on the side of the piano! We also added the piano's model as well as its serial number on the bottom right corner of the plate to add a bit of detail (There wasn't even any serial number on the plate).

We sent the files to a laser-cut shop to have the letterings made in white acrylic, then we spray painted them black:



More in the next post ----->