replacing back

[Delwin D Fandrich]

Mike Masters wrote:

>     ....I am curious as to what type of saw I am going to need (an industrial
> powered sabre saw with a 6" blade sounds logical to me) and what type of
> glue should be used for gluing the new back to the existing case sides....
>
> Mike Masters
> Masters Piano Service
> Lakewood, OH

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Forget the sabre saw. The blades flop around way too much. You'll end up causing more
damage than you're going to want to repair. If you can find someone with a 16" sliding
table panel saw, it'll be a piece of cake. This is the easy way. If you can't find access
to one of these, then lay the pianos on their faces (fully disassembled, of course), clamp
some straight-edge guides to the back parallel to the sides and use a "Skil" saw -- you
know, a large portable circular saw -- set to cut as deep as possible. Rent a large one
for the occasion. Make sure the blade is really sharp. And do a test cut first to be sure
the blade cuts at exactly 90º. And I do mean exactly. If you use a 12" saw, you might make
it in one pass. Even if the saw blade does not go quite all the way through, you'll find
the rest fairly easy to break free. (If you're not used to handling portable power tools,
you might want to borrow a house framer for the occasion. You might also want to make the
cut in two or three passes.)

Before you start, you'll want to measure the outside dimensions of the new back
assemblies. Are you getting them before or after they were routed to size? If they are
still over-size, you'll need to cut them down to match the dimension of the backs in the
pianos you already have. Else you'll have problems fitting the case parts -- such as the
upper and lower panels, the keycover and keyslip, etc., back on without binding or gaps.

When it comes to gluing the sides onto the new backs, you'll want to make spacers for the
upper parts of the sides to ensure that they are held exactly parallel to each other and
square to the back. Even a slight mis-alignment here will cause problems in fly fitting
later.

Questions?

Del