Antique Piano Repurposing Part 4: Bench

If you have missed posts about the Antique Piano that we have been repurposing the links are here Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

It has been so much fun being able to create so many new things with this piano.  Here is the next project that we did.

First of all, as a reminder we have to go back to this picture where we cut out the section that we used for the hall table. Now we are going to use the other section.  We removed the sound board and was left with this:

Now we flipped it over so what was the top has now become our base.  We cut the posts to become flat with the rest of our base.

Our next step was to attach the top of the piano to our base, this became the seat of our bench.

We decided that we needed to stain the wood to give it a more finished look.

After the stain dried, we used some wood scraps and created some posts for the back of the bench and attached them to the posts on the base.

Finally we were able to attach the board that I wanted to use for the back of the bench.  

Here it is after we moved it inside to it's spot just inside the front door as a place to sit and put your shoes on.

Antique Piano Repurposing Part 3- Angel Ornaments

I have a few more projects to share with you and this piano.  Here is another one I was hoping to get it up last month but the month just away from me.

I used some of the hammers from the piano to make these beautiful ornaments. I made tons of them, I also gave one to each of my piano students as their Christmas gift.  Check them out :)

Antique Piano Repurposing, Part 2....Hall Table

 If you missed our first post about this piano that we are giving new life to you can check it out here.

Now to continue on our story....

We left with the piano looking like this.  I forgot to get a picture of it right after we removed the harp.  We wanted to keep the front portion (where the keys sit on the piano) so that required us to cut that section out.  That led to fun with a skill saw :) Surprisingly, it was very easy.

Here is how it looked right after my husband cut it out.  Nothing like commandeering your garage and turning it into a mini workshop!  The large section left on the floor? Don't worry it has more life to give and we will get to it another day.  

On of the pesky pillars

Next there was a lot of sanding, and sanding and then more sanding followed by wiping it down to get all the dust off of it.  It might be hard to tell, but there are lots of groves and small spaces that made sanding difficult, particularly the pillars on either end.  But somehow the job always gets done, just a little time and elbow grease.....and it makes for a great excuse to get an orbital sander!

We used a stain-polyurethane combo from Minwax, put on in two coats.  If you remember my husband's sled restoration project he did the staining and polyurethane as two separate steps.  After doing this he preferred the end result with having them done separately (staining, then applying a polyurethane) as they were done on the sled.
 

We wanted to create sort of box-like structure for the glass top to sit in, thus we didn't cut the ends down all the way flush.  We used some of the wood from another part of the piano to go across the front closing it in, also slightly raised from where the glass would sit.  So now we were left with the sides and front closed in and the backside open.
 
We cleaned the keys and put them back in their spots and brought it into the house.  We did a lot of looking around online for glass businesses where we could order the top from.  It was a little trickier that I thought it would be.  A lot of local places didn't do table-top glass.  Online stores could ship it but the price of shipping was more than the glass itself.  Then there was the type of glass: 3/16 inch vs 1/4 inch vs 3/4 inch vs annealed vs tempered vs beveled edge vs rounded edge vs...well you get the idea.  We ended up finding a local place and the price was great and we were able to drive down and pick it up a couple days after ordering it.  We didn't want to drag anything out hemming and hawing on which glass would be best, so we went with a 3/16 inch-thick, annealed glass with a straight smooth edge and it was perfect!  We measured where the glass was going to sit, then measured it again....and again.  We don't have a glass cutter and didn't want to mess with that, but shop class paid off and the size we ordered fit right into the spot we had created.  Otherwise, trying to cut it or taking it back to the glass store for a resize would have been in order.

 Here it is with the glass!!

This is one of my favorite parts, the beautiful ornamenting on the table.

One of the best parts is you can still see the keys!!

 This is sitting in the hall of our front entryway. 

I just love it!!!

Stay tuned for more projects from the rest of the piano.....

Antique Piano Repurposing

I'm so excited to tell you about this project/s that we have been working on!!! First, though, I need to start with a bit of a story.  A friend of ours was giving away this beautiful piano, I thought it would be great to have a second piano in my piano studio for lessons.  Overall it was in pretty good shape but we knew that it needed a little bit of work and we were OK with doing a few things ourselves to fix it.  We rented a truck and moved it into our house (and that short sentence does the fun of piano moving NO justice at all!)  A couple of days later our piano tuner was over to tune the other piano and he checked out the new one a bit more in depth with us (well really A LOT more in depth.)  He pointed out that the sound board and all of the string bridges were cracking.  His explanation really made it obvious why this is typically a death sentence for a piano as you have to dismantle the piano to repair/replace those elements.  He also said that the piano was over 100 years old and that tuning the piano might be a bit more difficult and there was a good possibility that the strings and/or the bridges might break in the process.  The action also needed a near-complete overhaul.  He told us that to fully fix it it would be upwards of $8000 (even more) and we could tune it and possibly play on it for another few years but once the bridges completely break (assuming they didn't during tuning) then it would be back to spending more to fix it.  We thought about it and decided that we wanted to really enjoy this beautiful piano but we wanted give it life in another way and we had a few ideas in mind. 

The first item of business was to take it apart, but in a way that it would still serve the ideas that we had.   At times that made things tricky.

We removed the front panels, keyboard lid and music stand, that was the easy part as it entailed popping out just a few screws.  The piano collected a lot of dust over the years and vacuuming out the inside of a piano isn't something that is really done often (though after seeing this I've decided it should be.)  As were taking it apart there were many times we had to stop and vacuum out the dust....and dead spiders. 

Next up we removed the action.  The action is home to the hammers and all the parts that cause them to hit the strings.  It's really quite an elaborate and ingenious set up.   Surprisingly, removing it was fairly easy as actions are usually only held in place by three or four screws.  This one had four and once they were removed it lifted out quite easily.

After removing the action the next item up was the strings.  Now you have to do this carefully because there is a lot of tension on them and you don't want one to snap and hit you (read: safety glasses and gloves!!)  Usually a special tuning device is used to turn the pegs the strings are on and of course we didn't have one.  This simply meant trying various metric and standard sockets until we found one that fit snug enough to loosen them.  We turned each peg until the string was released from all the tension and then popped the string's end off the bolt. Next came the fun part of removing them from the piano.  As a side note, the entire time I was doing this part I was singing out loud and in my head "past the point of no return!!"

Action and all strings GONE!

The keys were easy to remove as they lift right out and these were in great shape considering their age.  Now removing the "harp" (the big heavy metal part) of the piano was hard since it had been screwed into the sound board for 100+ years and the screws they used were quite large.   Getting them out entailed finding a tight fitting phillips-head screwdriver and then applying a very firm and steady force so that it was enough to get it moving but not strip the head out.  Some of them were also in very awkward positions where getting a screw driving in place was almost impossible.  My husband ended up having to drill out some of the screws because they wouldn't budge and stripped out.  We also moved the piano out to the garage at this point because we were going to do some cutting (the two of us moved it....more piano-moving fun!!)

Out in the garage, keys off and ready for the next phase.

 Next we popped off the top (which will be saved for something in the future).  Once that was done it sat ready for more tear-down and repurposing!  Stay tuned for the first project that came from this!!

Flexible Flyer Sled Restoration

So my husband surprised me at Christmas with this sled that he restored.  I think that it turned out way awesome and he was willing to write a post about the process that he went through doing it.  I'll turn it over to him.

Recently at a local auction I came across an old Flexible Flyer Airline Junior sled.  The bidding war was fierce, but I came out victorious. Actually, I was the only bidder and got it on the cheap, but I was happy nonetheless.  For being in the ballpark of 50+ years old it was in surprisingly good shape and none of the wood was broken.  However, the original finish was pretty much gone and the metal parts were rusted with most of the paint on the bottom of the runners missing.  It was dusty beyond belief too.  A last minute jolt of inspiration gave me the idea to restore this "vintage" item and give it a breath of new life.  I have never attempted this before so I did a lot of trailblazing and a lot of improvising as I went along.  But in the end, I think it turned out nicely and I could definitely see more of these projects in the future.  Get your tools and get ready to have some fun!

Like a dirty car with "wash me!" written in the dirt on the back window.  This guy was just waiting for a face lift!

There at the top right you can see finger prints from handling the sled...this thing was dirty!  Before moving on to the actual tear-down of the sled I took A TON of pictures from many different angles.  I was careful to get good shots where there were multiple parts coming together.  Although this is a smaller sled I wanted to be able to have a good idea of how things go back together to avoid the infamous "left over" parts after a rebuild project

There were no screws holding the sled together.  The part you sit on was nailed to the supports beams. The side-frame and steering components were all held together with rivets (rusted, stubborn, don't-want-to-move rivets to boot.)  If you've ever dealt with rivets before you'll know that they are made to hold tight and not let go once it is seated in place.  You can almost count on them being a permanent thing.  I did say almost, right?  This is where a good old fashion drill comes in handy....and some patience, finesse (drilling and finesse??!!  I must be crazy) and elbow grease.

The drill, because as I mentioned the rivets are meant to hold tight once put in place, which is evidenced by the fact that not one was missing, broken or loose.  What I did was use a drill with a 1/8 or 9/64 (size depending on the rivet) drill bit attached.  The finesse, because I would place the drill bit over one end of the rivet and rev it up and care is needed not to let the drill slip off and have the bit dig into the wood.  The patience and elbow grease, because there were a lot of rivets holding this thing together and they like to stay put!  I would run the drill until it had gone in enough to remove that end of the rivet (or at least hollow it out nicely.)  Luckily, the design of a rivet allows it to come loose when one of its ends is no longer there.  Since they were rusted out I also had to put a Phillips head screw driver into the drilled-out end and give it a few strong whacks! to punch the rivet out.  There's no sugar coating it, it took a while to drill through each one and some were more stuck than others.

Rivet on its way out

Those rivets couldn't stand up to the mighty drill bit and screw driver.

The steering mechanism had the most parts meeting up so I took extra pictures

Success!!  Rivets out, everything taken apart and ready to be cleaned up.

So there were a couple of different direction to go with cleaning the metal and getting it ready to paint.  The first involved using steel wool to scrub the metal clean.  I started doing that and found a several day project would probably turn into much more than that.  I wanted everything off before painting them and it just wasn't getting the metal cleaned like I wanted.  So what did I do?  I took to Google and found a local business that does sandblasting.  The picture above is the result of a relatively cheap ($$-wise) sandblasting job.  The metal was perfectly clean and rough, perfect for a primer and paint to stick to.

With the metal ready to go it was off to the store to look at paint.  If you've ever walked down the aerosol paint aisle you'll know what I mean when I say your options are almost endless.  There were so many paints to choose from--high gloss, some gloss, no gloss, anti-rust, primer/paint combos, water-resistant, metal and plastic specific and on and on.  Your end goal with your project will likely determine which product you choose.  I wasn't planning on using this sled in the great outdoors so I didn't need the super-water/rust/abrasion-resistant-dries-hard-as-a-rock-all-powerful-primer-paint-combo (I totally made that up, but you get the idea.)  This sled is going to be a decorative item in the house (boring, I know) so I opted to go with a simple gloss protective enamel paint.

After some searching I decided on a product and picked up some primer.  This one to be exact.  I placed the metal on some cardboard, shook the can like crazy and sprayed it on.  Once it dried I flipped the parts over and repeated on the other side.  I applied two coats of primer following the directions on the can.

With the primer on and parts dry I was ready to apply the gloss paint.  I wanted to go for that shiny "hot-rod" look so I opted for a gloss enamel rather than semi- or no-gloss paint.  I stuck with the same make and got this enamel in black for the steering parts and cherry red for the runners.

I followed the same procedure as with the primer, painting one side and letting it dry then flipping it over and repeating.  I'm no professional painter so I didn't have anything to hang them with so it was back to the cardboard.  You have to take care not to cake the paint on otherwise they can stick and when you pick them up part of the paint can come off the edges.  After the prescribed two coats I noticed that they didn't have that awesome candy-hard, glistening enamel look that I was wanting and in fact they were slightly rough.  Unfortunately (but in this case, fortunately) I had nicked one of the edges of one of the rails and chipped off some paint and needed to touch it up.  This entailed putting a third coat on that one small area and once this had dried it was smooth as can be and super glossy.  Just what I wanted!!  All the pieces got a third coat and were shining and glossy as can be.

Metal parts done....on to the wood parts!

I'm not sure of the type of wood (I slept through that part of class) but it was still in really good shape and just needed a good sanding and staining.  To get the surface ready to accept a stain you'll want to remove present finishes using a gritty sandpaper and then smooth the surface with a finer grit.  I used a 120 grit to get rid of the current stain and markings (logo, other printed information already present.)  It took some work and in retrospect I'll probably use a grittier sandpaper (probably 80) next time to make the job easier.  After getting the wood clean I moved to a 220 grit paper and sanded it again to give it a smooth-as-a-babys-bottom feel and ready it for staining. Choices for staining were almost as numerable as those for paints, but not quite.  I opted to go with Minwax stain in the Red Oak finish.  I purchased a small 8oz can and this provided plenty of stain with leftover for the next job.

There are many ways and techniques to apply stain and I'm by no means an expert saying this is the be-all-end-all method.  Either way, I applied the stain using a foam brush, let it sit for roughly 10 minutes then wiped the excess off with a rag.  After letting it dry for the prescribed time I applied a second coat, but only let it sit for about 5 minutes before wiping off the excess.  I wanted a dark look but not too dark.  I was happy with the results.

Staining probably would have been enough but I decided to add an extra layer of protection (and I also wanted it to give it that shiny look.)  That led me to a polyurethane finish.  I again went with Minwax.  The 8oz can was more than enough since only a thin coating is needed for each application.  Following their directions I applied a thin coat with a foam brush, let it dry, flipped it over and repeated.  After drying I applied a second coat and they have you very lightly sand with a fine grit (220) sandpaper before applying that second coat.  I want to emphasize the very light part of that sand job because you don't want to remove much of that first coat (and heaven forbid, your stain.)  This is just to smooth out the first layer of polyurethane because as I ran my hand over it I noticed some imperfections and raised edges. 

After applying the second polyurethane coat the wood was smooth and glistening.  I suppose a third would prove even better, but I stopped at two.

Now came what would inevitably be the multiple trips to Lowe's for screws, bolts and nuts and the real trial and error would begin.  I opted to put the sled together with bolts rather than rivets for a couple of reasons, but mostly because I didn't want to buy a rivet gun.  The rivets were fairly torn up from the drilling and hammering but were still able to supply a rough estimate for length and circumference of the bolts I was going to need.  I measured them all out and headed down to the store for the goods.  I purchased brass parts because I thought it would blend well with the stain on the wood.  If any nut was going to be in contact with the metal I used a rubber washer so as to not damage the gloss finish.  Luckily all of the nuts and washers attach to the bottom and are out of site, so I guess I did this as more of a "hey, I spent a lot of time painting this dang thing and I'm not gonna have some nut scratch it up even if you don't see it!!!" kind of deal.

I ended up using some 1 1/2, 2 and 3 inch bolts for the mainframe.  Circumference-wise they were 10-24 although this can vary depending on the size of the holes in both the wood and metal.  Luckily (I seemed to have a lot of that with this project) they were all 10-24 and no further drilling was needed to make any holes bigger.

For the main boards I used brass screws instead of nails and here is where I learned another lesson.  While the polyurethane didn't fill the holes it did narrow them a bit and this proved problematic when it came to drilling in the screws.  The screws were #4 and while this isn't a completely thin, flimsy screw it isn't a big, thick one by any means.  On the first screw I could feel quite a bit of resistance as it was going in until that ominous snap! indicating the screw had broken.  I immediately stopped drilling, removed it and thought for a moment.  I pulled out my drill bits again and chose one that wouldn't make the hole any bigger (I don't think I would have survived another trip to Lowe's) but did clear the way for the screw.  All 18 holes were cleared out quickly and easily and the rest of the screws went in without a hitch.  Below was the result of all that hoopla.




The next part to tackle was the steering.  When this sled was made it apparently made quite the impact because of its "patented steering mechanism" at the time.  What this basically meant was that when you would turn the steering bar one way it would also cause the runners to turn in that direction.  For this part I found an interesting screw at Lowe's that I had never worked with before: Post screws

They act like a rivet with a less permanent attachment.  In the picture below you can see that I used a post screw in the parts that actually bend and move when the steering bar is turned either direction.

The final touch was purchasing a short segment of nylon rope to fish through the holes in the steering bar and tie off.

Overall, this was a fair amount of work but a TON of fun.  Considering how this sled was before starting and how it looks and feels now makes it worth it 100%  You can also see that I didn't add any type of logo or print back onto the wood.  There were several reasons for this with the biggest being a time constraint and this being my first restoration project I didn't have the know-how to get it done quickly.  The next time around I will certainly invest some time in learning how that is done so I can play around with that aspect of it.