crack fillers, old pianos

[Ron Koval]

Wally, even with a hypo, working from the top, the repair will be obvious. 
(unless you have a real thin needle and a steady hand)  My gut feeling is 
that there may not be much improvement in the bass, but your tuning 
stability may be better. (just my personal experience)

I've had good luck working with Weldbond Universal Space Age Adhesive (so 
the bottle says! available in the hardware stores)  This is a white-glue 
that maintains some flexibility when fully dry.  My goal in your situation 
is to stabilize the system, not put things back to where they origionally 
were.

This is tedious, but should only take 30-60 minutes.  The trick is to work 
from the bottom and place some glue on your finger and rub across the crack, 
forcing the glue up to the string side. (you can get it to come out the top 
if you work at it, but I usually don't let it come out that high) Work the 
length of each crack, cleaning up as you go.  Dries clear.  May need to add 
some more later if cracks are wide.  I only have done this around 10 years, 
and all are holding up.  I feel that flexibility is the key for this type of 
'repair'.  Like others have said- it cracked for a reason, you're not going 
to change that.

To get the glue deep into the cracks, you may want to thin some of the glue 
and 'preglue' the cracks with this solution.  This keeps enough moisture 
with the thicker glue to allow the glue to penetrate the wood better.

good luck

Ron Koval


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