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Hi all,

Newbie to the forum here. Hopefully I am posting in the right area...

I have just purchased my first REAL piano (synths and MIDI controllers before this) and would like to do some refurbishment and overall maintenance on it. It's a Yamaha CFIII built in 1984... it's quite a monster!
May I ask a few initial questions to you experts please?

1. My understanding is that the polished ebony finish is polyester. Is that correct and if so, any idea how thick that coating is? I've seen a couple of videos about fine sanding and polishing polyester... which I'd love to try (currently lots of tiny swirl scratches on it), but I am scared to death of going through to the wood.

2. The sharps appear to be ebony. For some weird reason, a few of the bass sharps are heavily worn, almost like some small animal was chewing on them! I would like to replace them with the same wood and overall re-stain all the sharps to a uniform blackness. So my questions are: how tough is it to replace the sharp keytops and once done, what should I use to re-stain all the sharps? I did read that india ink is a good choice, but wanted to get your opinions.

Thanks!

Cheers,
Rich.

Hi Rich and welcome to the forum.

Are you a technician? I would only tackle a piano like this if I really knew what I was doing but more power to your elbow....

I guess you could start by contacting Yamaha and asking what parts are available for this piano. I don't know if the new sharps fit the old keyboard, but you could probably have a whole new keyboard and action stack fitted by Yamaha if the piano required it. I was always under the impression that sharp keys were pre-stained when you bought them.

I know that the Yamaha piano keyboard of today is slightly different to the one of the 1980s but I don't know if it's just the chamfer on the sharps that has changed or if there's more to it.

Congratulations on your new piano, I hope you'll be very happy together.

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the quick response!

Hah I am definitely not a technician, although I have done some work refurbishing vehicle finishes. I am OK with trying refurbishment techniques and learning... as long as I know all the parameters.

Good idea, I will get in contact with Yamaha... I'd kind of assumed that due to the age of the piano they would be unlikely to stock anything but it's definitely worth a try! Not sure I'd want to fork out for a whole new action... wife might be on the war path.

Thanks again!

Yeah and if you did buy a whole new action you would need an experienced technician to fit it. It's never just a case of slotting the new parts in.

You might be able to get a new set of black key tops though.

You might even be able to fill the damaged sharps in with CA.

The finish is almost certainly thick enough to flat sand with wet fine paper going through the grits up to 1200 and then polishing with a power buffer. You will need to disassemble the case parts which will also mean cleaning up the brasswork. Maybe replace brass screws and certainly the rubber buttons. This is a lot of labor!

If you have no experience, better to just hire someone that does. You'll be happier in the long run.
-chris

I appreciate all of your replies! Thanks!

Suffice to say, how it sounds and the action are most important and they are both great (although I may try my hand at some simple regulation though... polish key pins, rejuvenate felts etc).

I think all the people who know me would agree I'm a bit OCD (or CDO with the letters in the correct order! :P), so I want to make this middle-aged lady as perfect as I can.

Just for context, I will try and attach some pics to this post! As hopefully you can see... nothing major, but that old OCD is nagging me.

The finished is polyester. The thickness of the coating is about 0.35 mm.
Shallow scratches and hair line can be cleaned by sanding with # 600# 800# 1000 +soap water and buffing.

Deep scratches must fill the polyester.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/AJUpe8ojtN7Bc0ep2

The genuine Yamaha black key top .
Bakelite =about 4$/each
WPC=about 15$/each.
Normal ebony=about$21/each.

T0490820 (black key top for CF3S,CFX )
Price=about 24$/each

Prices fluctuate. Please ask for Yamaha.

Removing a sharp key is actually quite easy. They should be glued with a hide type of glue that you can steam to remove the binding. The problem is that it will take many steps to get the single key out of the action. You would have to remove the action and keys form the piano and then remove that action stack from the keybed. It is quite a few steps.

I do not think Yamaha uses hide glue on the sharps.

Nonetheless, judicious use of heat will soften whatever adhesive they did use. However I do not believe the OP understands fully what he is getting into.

Pwg

How are the tuning pins(Torque), hammers and the strings?

Hi Rich, Congratulations on your CFIII!

You are a brave soul for wanting to improve your piano on your own. I think I might suggest before diving in to repair your own piano, you watch some YouTube videos on Piano refurbishment and the labor it takes and the mess it makes. Do a search on this forum about rebuilding a Soviet era Estonia Concert grand. Lots of pictures showing the work involved.

Are you just trying to improve the appearance of your piano on your own and leave tuning, regulation, and voicing to a professional piano tech?

I played a Yamaha CFIII concert grand at a Church once. It sounded and played great, based on my meager playing skills.

Speaking of the Yamaha CFIII, this is probably irrelevant to this thread, but I'll say it anyway. Years ago, I purchased a new Yamaha P90 digital stage piano. The P90 has no internal speakers, and has to have an amp or powered speakers. I purchased a new Peavey Keyboard amp just for the P90. However, the P90 had some unpleasant and irritating ringing overtones on some of the notes around the 5th octave. It was so bad, and so irritating to me, I thought it might be the new Peavey amp, and returned the amp to the store, and purchased a more expensive Roland 350 keyboard amp.

No luck. I heard the exact same odd, ringing overtones with the new Roland amp. So, I contacted Yamaha Customer/Warranty Service for digital pianos and told them about the issues I was having with the odd overtones. They said they would get back to me. In the meantime, I did some research online and found that others had complained about the same, odd ringing overtones on the new P90.

When Yamaha service got back to me, what they said was very disappointing. They said they checked into the issues I had complained about and said it was not the P90 because it was sampled using a Yamaha CFIII, which was the absolute best piano in all the world. They said the issues were my ears and my hearing, and not the P90.

First of all, I don't know for a fact that the CFIII is the best piano in all the world; secondly, they don't know for a fact that my hearing is defective. I am a huge fan of Yamaha acoustic pianos, but I'll never purchase another Yamaha digital piano, no matter how good they may claim to be.

Moral of the story? Your Yamaha CFIII is the best piano in all the world, according to Yamaha Digital Piano Warranty Service!

Congratulations!

Rick

Wasn't this from the time period that Yamaha had a recall on the keyboards? I doubt that's still in effect, so many years later, but I think there was a batch of keyboards from that time which had issues with the sharps. Some of the older, more experienced techs may remember this better than I.

The problem was with the first Ivorite white keys.

The CFIIIs was a bigger improvement over the CFIII than the CFX is over the CFIIIs, in my opinion.

Thanks for all the excellent information guys!

Hah great story there Rick... suffice to say my Yamaha is the best piano in the world to me... because it's mine and I get to play it!

I am not taking any endeavours lightly... I have been given the name of a local guy who specializes in polyester piano finishes so will be seeing what he has to say before I touch anything... if the price is right I will just let him glam her up!

I would like to learn some basic restoration skills and have watched a lot of YouTube videos... which I know is no substitute for experience. Need to think about this more!!

Regarding the tuning pins, hammers and strings... all seem good. strings are bright and not corroded (thanks Colorado humidity!), hammers were recently voiced and seem to be good (although, again I am no expert!), pins have held tune through the piano move and a week of settling in.

One other question though... although all information in the web points to this being a CFIII, from other CFIII photos and the badge on the harp, I am wondering if it's a CF or a very early CFIII... opinions? The Yamaha S/N lookup site says this:

Serial Number Model Name
3897100 CFIII PE

All sites with S/N dating point to it being a 1984

Here's the badge:


Either way I am really happy with it... would just like to know what I actually own! LOL

Cheers!

That's a CF. It's not 9 feet long, is it?

Yep... 9ft long.

"CFIII" was cast into the plate of the ones I tuned.

(The CFIIIs had the same cast inscription, but the serial number began with an "S")