Reviving the Thomas Dawkins Mystery

 

Marion is currently visiting family in the UK for Christmas and took another look at the Thomas Dawkins issue. What's your best guess?

Action Rod Appeal

Hi everyone, so sorry for the lack of updates lately. All explained in the video above. We currently need help sourcing action rods. Please share with any contacts you might have.

Shorty

Ever feel you're being watched?

Very interesting day last week. Went to tune a 1957 British Bentley. Yes, not only do they make cars, they also make pianos! No, different Bentley.

What a treat. A very strange little thing. The bottom board is more of a small cabinet.

But the strangest part was that it only had 85 keys. From what I understand, this was the original number of keys pianos had up until around 1880 when most manufacturers switched to the now-standard 88 keys. So, to find a piano manufactured in the 1950s with only 85 keys is perplexing. It's a small piano, but you don't really save that much space by knocking out three keys.

Modern pianos end on C8, whereas this stops at A7. 

This created a slight problem. The piano hadn't been tuned in a very long time and required an overpull. TuneLab has a very clever little calculation programme on it, which listens to C, E and G in every octave, then tells you how much to overpull by in order for everything to sound roughly correct by the end. The problem of course being, we couldn't find an 85-key tuning option and it insisted on listening to C8 in order to complete the programme...

The eventual fix was to play A7 and then delete it from the recorded notes. This seems to work, but it would be helpful if the app had an 85-key option.

Anyway, it was a pleasure to play with, though there was some rust damage and we lost a bass and a treble string along the way. Given how old many of the pianos we see are, and the humid conditions they're often kept in, it's not unusual to lose a string along the way, especially as many haven't been tuned in years, but it's a bit unusual to lose two. We've ordered a new bass string, but it will need to come from Germany, so may take some time.

We also tuned a well-travelled Rubinstein, which has been all over the world, originally bought in Armenia and arriving here via Tanzania, like the Bugesera Hamilton.

It was a bit of a wander through the back streets of Kigali, but eventually we found it.

A full 88-key display. However, we're having some trouble dating it as the online piano calculator doesn't seem to list Rubinstein and there's not much else to go on. If anyone has a serial number manual, it's 224392, and we'd be greatful for the manufacture date and any other information about Rubinsteins. It sports one of the most convoluted mute-rail system ever seen. Thankfully it's in good working order and looks to have been much played over the years.

Installing a Sliding Fallboard

Marion was back at Bugesera Lodge today, tuning the Hamilton upright. Afterwards, she needed to replace the fallboard, which was taken out some months ago during the repairs. Only, she'd forgotten quite what you do with it. YouTube didn't appear to have any answers, so she's put together her own quick guide on how to do it. Most fallboards just go up and down, but sliding ones push back into the piano like a drawer. They're a little bit tricky if you haven't met one before.

3D Printed Piano Parts

 

We've been working with Olivier Nteziryayo at Fablab Rwanda to try to 3D print piano action parts. Olivier has very kindly given his time and effort to exploring locally-sourced piano part alternatives, which are essential for building pianos here in the future. The last set of parts we ordered from America took four months to arrive by post and cost more to ship than the parts were worth. That's why it's so important for us to get creative.

He printed this damper lever from PLA plastic, but it is not strong enough for purpose. An interesting experiment, though. With 3D printing you get the accuracy, but not the strength. With handmade carpentry, you get the strength, but not always the accuracy. It also takes around 30 minutes to print a single part.

We're pausing for a moment as Fablab is moving location, but once the machines are back up and running we're going to continue. We also have a design change we'd like to try in order to see if we can replace centrepins.  These regularly fall out of old pianos and they're difficult to source because you can only buy them in bulk and there are many sizes. If you buy the wrong size, it's another four months before the next fit arrives. The post is really our nemesis, especially with the lack of people travelling internationally at the moment. 

We'll keep you updated.

PiliPili Part II

  

You may remember, some years back, we were invited to look at a piano at a bar in town. It would have cost around £1,000 to make it playable, including import on pieces and labour. The owner decided against it, which is a shame, because it's a 120-year-old Parisian Sébastien Érard. 

Recently, we were back in touch with the owner, as we're experimenting with local alternatives to imported parts, spurred on by our flip-flop hammer venture. In order to test some of our theories, we need a broken action to play with. He's allowed us to take the action from the Érard. If our experiments work, he might just get a working piano out of it. If not, the piano will be pretty much the same as it was before. 

There was just one problem... between now and the last time we saw it, half the humidity of Rwanda seeped into the woodwork and jammed the fallboard. Marion downed a couple of G&Ts and attempted to free it on a night out with friends. That didn't exactly work. So, Desire and Pauline came with her the next time and spent half an hour coaxing it out.

 

  

The humidity has eaten into the strings as well. Lot of rust, but it might just survive long enough to play a few songs. We're a long way off tuning, though. At least it's still got a full set.

 

 

 

 

There's also some interesting details with the soundboard, which doesn't cover the whole of the back of the piano, only the parts behind the strings. This appears to be by design.

 

  

 

Also got most of the original ivories, and the owner has a few salvaged in a bag. We'll replace if we get to that point. You can tell ivory, because the keytops come in two pieces. You can see a fine line along the bottom of the black keys, whereas plastic keytops are usually much brighter in colour and all one piece. You don't tend to see ivory after the Second World War, and it's illegal to trade ivory today, so modern pianos use plastic. 

 

 It's also got a beautiful set of candle sconces. 

 

 

So, we now have the action, which is itself rather a strange beast. It's entirely wood mounted and perhaps a little heavier than a standard action.

 

 

 

 

More to follow on this as we start working. Considering how old it is, the action appears to be in remarkably good working order. The main plan is to try out leather-wrapped wooden hammers to substitute for felt. The flip-flop hammers worked really well but they are also a little expensive and still need to be brought in from Kenya. If we could find a completely local solution, that would make piano repair a lot cheaper.

Andy Mwag and the Effect of COVID on Musicians

  

Hi everyone. This is the latest video by our lovely friend Andy Mwag. You might remember, he helped put a string on our piano some years back. 

 

He's a really talented musician, and used to play each week here in Kigali. Seriously, the best live music in the city, often with guest appearances from amazing DRC and Burundian musicians. Marion and her friend Harris had some brilliant nights out with the Viva Beats crew. 

 

Sadly, when COVID hit, it completely wiped out the live music scene in Kigali. As a gigging musician, Andy couldn't make enough to support his wife and two young kids, so they had to move back to their home country of Burundi, which required special permission from their embassy as all the borders were closed. It was a really sad day to see them go, and our friend Emmy drove them to the checkpoint.

 

At the Border between Rwanda and Burundi

 

He's still continuing to make music in Burundi, but life is not much easier. For as long as restrictions and social distancing remain in place, many musicians are struggling to make a living.

If you'd like to help support him, you can buy his music online.

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.