I Did WHAT To This 100-Year-Old Piano?! DIY Piano Bookshelf
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- I gutted a 100 year-old baby grand piano and turned it into an upright bookshelf! Some of my tools and methods make me question, "What is Fine Woodworking?" That is, can I use a sawzall and nail gun and still end up with a beautiful project? It feels like I used every tool in my shop, and then some more, in order to bring this project to completion.
Amazing transformation! Beautiful woodworking & craftsmanship!
Thank you!
I believe that it is fine. Woodworking. You 've shown great skill and common sense to complete the project. I too was considering doing this and that is why I watched your video.
Thank you! I appreciate it. Hopefully I was able to give you a few ideas- when I was first researching this project, I didn’t feel like there were very many good resources to figure out a project like this
Absolutely beautiful!!!! Well done 👏
Thank you!
Your work touches my heart - as someone who is now preparing to move and feeling so sad about having to “let a piano go”-you have given me inspiration to find a skilled craftsperson to give new life to a precious object from my family’s past. you have given me a way to “take” the family treasure with me 💫what a gift . Thank you !
I wish you all the best and hope you find someone who can do that for you!
She must have loved how beautifully you saved her childhood piano from the junk yard !
It holds a lot of memories ... so nice you could find a way of keeping it useful and making it a beautiful piece of furniture for her home.
I L❤VE ... L❤VE ... L❤VE it ...
and it wasn't even my childhood piano.
She did! It was definitely a very rewarding project for everyone involved
Excelente trabajo también estaba la obsion de una mesa muy original
Felicidades
Thank you!
Beautiful fine custom woodwork. You transformed this into a stunning bookshelf with the original charm of its former purpose. Tremendous woodworking skills and vision.
Thank you so much for the kind words! It was a tremendous project that I thoroughly enjoyed!
That’s a “fine” piano shelf. This is so cool! I love repurposing old stuff into something totally different. Also, when you end up with a really neat end product, doesn’t matter how you got there. I would still consider it fine woodworking.
Thanks! That seems to be the general consensus from the feedback I’ve gotten across FB/IG/YT
Love it !!!!
Thank you!
I'm about to do the same project. You've done a great job, of course it's fine woodworking. Any tool that does the job you need it to has a place. I'm going to paint the outer frame a solid colour as the original varnish is in poor condition and the shelves are likely to be cherry or yew so getting a colour/stain match feels like an impossibility. Hopefully the contrast will work. Thank you for the ideas in this video regarding the shaping and fixing of the shelves. That radial arm dado stack looks like something from robocop!
Thanks! Make sure you use a stain-blocking primer to keep that color from bleeding through- I’ve been seeing a lot more wood/paint contrast out there, so I think you’re on to something! Good luck!
Excellent job. I don't know about your area, but here in Vegas CL/free has 2-3 standing pianos at all times, (Yesterday's new addition is a gorgeous 1888 make date. Stunning.) 2-3 time a month a Grand is out there for free, not even kidding. Right now LA has a beautiful Grand about 350 miles away....FREE.
My idea for the build which I did not catch if yo answered was to take off the TOP, move it to the BACK, and add shelves in front. This will keep all the uniformity in color and finish in the shell. If not that, then I intend to cut up the top and make the shelves with that. I have been dreaming of this for about 6 years, but my tiny apartment is far from a shop. I admire your keyboard innovation.
I love it. The wood is beautiful and it is a lovely piece for a musician's studio. Nice job.
Thank you! A lot of work and love of the craft went into this project!
I can see why you couldn't resist the challenge! I appreciate your going with stained wood. And such nice artistic solutions for the base supports! Just beautiful. I'm trying to guess the weight; maybe 150 LBS? It was for a neighbor so I wonder if you were compensated sufficiently for your time??
That first table saw cut of the keys 🙈
This is phenomenal.
I knew from the beginning that was going to be the money shot! 🤑🤑🤑
I LOVE IT AND NEED ONE!!!!
It’s definitely a one of a kind piece
I would leave the soundboard, add some exciter speakers and a subwoofer, and have an amazing sound system.
Dude. How awesome would that be! I did build my first speaker this year… I’ll definitely keep this idea in mind!
Definitely consider this fine woodworking. I have a very old upright grand piano that I'm considering making into a piano bar. I'm curious which design you would choose.
Nice result!
Thank you!
Absolutely, this qualifies as fine woodworking. And, very nice work at that. I also liked your oak dining table with the butterfly leaf. I'd be interested to know what you decided to do with respect to finishing the base structure?
Thank you! Are you referring to the base structure of this piano bookshelf or for the butterfly table? For the piano bookshelf, after staining to match I sprayed it with the same lacquer finish as the rest of the piano. For the table base I used Rubio Monocoat in 2 steps- Precolor Nordic White then Super White
Awesome!
Thanks!
Looks great!
Thank you!
Greg, this was amazing!!
Thank you!!!
Very cool! I am taking on this project now. Can you explain what springs you installed under the keys and how you did it? Bravo on your project!
Unfortunately, I only undertook the woodworking portion of this project. My understanding for the springs was the piano specialist inserted a compression spring underneath each key, winding around the small metal rod holding each key in place
Looks amazing
Thank you! Almost 1 year later and I still can’t believe how it turned out
love the creativity well done
Thank you! The idea itself wasn’t mine, but my job is to make those ideas happen!!
That is beautiful and fine woodworking, you use the tools you have. I have gutted and am about to start removing the sound board on my family piano. How did you support the shelves on the curved side of the piano. Did you cut dadoes and what tools did you use to do that?
I really appreciate the feedback- over a year later and this is still one of my favorite projects since then. I wanted to cut dados for the shelves, but for the life of me couldn’t think of an efficient way to do it. I ended up shaping the ends of the shelves to fit the curves as tightly as I could, and then glued it and used a few short Brad nails to hold it in place while the glue dried. I also added a back section to each shelf that ran across the entire back, serving as another contact point to hold the shelf onto the piano. Best of luck with your project!
Important to de-tune the strings to avoid injury..torque them down across the tuning pin field gradually
This is good knowledge. Like I said in the video, I had a professional piano builder help me take the musical guts out. Next time I probably won’t be so lucky, so this is good to know 👍
I'm no SAFETY Sally. Government has no place telling you are I what and how in life. I ALMOST PASSED OUT. As a power machine amputee missing part of my right thumb for 40+ years, please look @ 4:50 and consider just where your fingers are as they emerge from the guard on that jointer.
It is 5:45am, and I hope I unpucker around noon.
Generally I don’t like being told what to do (probably a good reason why I am self-employed) but I will take a look. At this point this project is closing in on two years ago, so I hope my best practices with power machinery have improved since then. Thanks.
I'm curious how deep the shelves would be if you had left the sound board in place. I have an baby grand whose playing days are over and I'm considering using it in a similar fasion. What time and trouble would you have saved or created from having the sound board as the back of the shelving?
Taking the soundboard out let me build close to standard 12” wide shelves. With the soundboard, you could maybe get 3”. Definitely can’t be useable without taking out the soundboard, except for small knickknacks
See now, I would’ve needed to see how to take the harp out and you cut that all out. I wish you wouldn’t of.
That’s fair. A true piano man helped disassemble that part and allow me to focus on the woodworking aspect. I keep hoping I get another chance to do another one of these and I’ll be sure to include that part!
How did you guys remove the harp? 😅
We flipped the piano on its side and pulled the harp out that way- I never realized how heavy the harp actually was until that moment 😂
@@SpottedTongueWoodworking yeah, it’s very heavy. We’ve been trying to get one out. We’ve taken all the screws out but now we are thinking it’s been glued as well? Or perhaps the wood has infused itself with the seemingly titanium harp.
@Lakeb67 are you building a shelf like this too??? I’m a little hazy on exactly how we got it out- pretty sure there was a 3lb sledgehammer involved
@@SpottedTongueWoodworking yes sir I am building a shelf like this. I’ve had the idea for a while but I have been stuck on getting the harp out. Although I will say yours looks pretty professional. I doubt mine will be that good just for the fact that I do not have all of the tools that you have.
@Lakeb67 I’m very fortunate with all of the equipment that I have access to, but you definitely don’t need half the things I used. I keep reminding myself that there’s someone in a third world country carving statues with a sharpened spoon that’s a better woodworker than I’ll ever be able be. You got this 💪💪💪
barbaric you can use it as basis for a digital piano
And the purists would call a digital piano barbaric as well 🤷♂️