There's No Such Thing as a Free Piano, Part Deux

The next day, I called some neighbors and they kindly said they would help me unload the piano. It took us longer to unwrap the piano than it did to actually get it off the truck and into the house. Of course, everyone was SOBER, so that helped considerably.

Within seconds of getting the piano in the house, it was besieged by 3 future pianists:



Notice to the left of my son, the condition of the keys. Our oldest child "H" is sitting in the middle where all the functional keys are located. Our middle child "A" is sitting to her right. "H" was scolding "A" for playing her keys. "A" screams, "But my keys are all BROKEN!!!"

I finally succeeded in shooing the future pianists away and began to assess the damage. The jammed keys had simply shifted off their pins and they were fairly easy to put back into place. There was some damage to some of the hammers so there are still about 5 keys that don't work. But considering what the piano has gone through, it's not in that bad of shape.



The only real repair I had to do was to glue the rod that holds the front panel on. I found all the broken pieces down in the bottom of the piano and used some carpenter's glue to re-attach them.

Here's what the intact right side looks like:


Here's what the left side looked like before I started:


Here's a picture of my repair job. I was so happy that I got to use my handy clamps that my in-laws gave me for Christmas several years ago!


As for the broken hammers, I'm going to have my brother-in-law take a look at it the next time he comes to visit. He doesn't repair pianos for a living, but he's around piano's all the time and he has performed similar repairs on my mother's piano. If nothing else, I'm sure a piano tuner would be able to perform the needed repairs.