Flip-flop Piano Hammers

 

And the answer to, 'Can you play a piano with recycled flip-flops?' is - yes. Yes you can.

As our own piano has a way to go, we popped the old Lirika action into a Korean Young Chang. It doesn't fit in the slightest, but it was enough to get an initial sense of whether our flip-flop hammers can do the job. They absolutely can. Sound just as good as traditional felt and appear to be durable. Thanks to Ocean Sole for making this happen.

 

Returning to the World

  

We have been on a really long  COVID hiatus. Just before Christmas, Rwanda went back into lockdown. We only emerged a couple of weeks ago. During this time the workshop was closed. Now that things are open again, both Marion and Des have had a lot of catching up to do on other projects, so it may be a while before the piano gets rolling again.

One of the things that has kept Marion sane during lockdown has been working on this Kawai action for a lady whose daughter wants piano lessons. It required a key butt replacing, two new hammer butts, several bridle straps and a full 88-whippen spring replacement. Now follows a gratuitous number of photos showing how artsy piano pieces look...

 

 

Old Spring, New Spring

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

The repairs would only have taken about a week, but some of the parts took four months to arrive. We'll post more about this shortly, but the piano is now in working order and we're starting to get back to building our prototype.