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Day 62: Our Bechstein upright piano is very old. It was built around 1867. Joyce's parents
purchased it around 1960 when they lived in Germany when Joyce was just a
baby. The piano was shipped over the Atlantic Ocean to West Point, New
York, when Kent was reassigned state side. It then went to Salt Lake
City, Utah; San Antonio, Texas; Fort Riley, Kansas; and then back to
Heilbronn, Germany for 4 years. In 1975 it made a final trip back to
Salt Lake City when Joyce was 16 years old. It stayed in the basement of
their condo until 1985 when John and Joyce moved to New Hampshire. The
moving van stopped by the Acomb condo and the piano was put in the van.
It has been in our living room since then, over 38 years. It can't fit
through any inside doorway. The piano is "end of life", but it has many
memories. All of our children took piano lessons from age 8 until
graduating from high school. Joyce also took piano lessons much of that
time. It is important to protect this old piano during construction. John gave it a lot of thought and came up with a box design made of 4 panels and a lid. This time lapse video is of day one. There was lots of box moving to the POD at the beginning of the day. Progress was made in the afternoon making the panels for the piano box. John did the initial box design on June 8th. The design sketches are given below as well as two pictures of the finished box with the piano inside. I used plywood flooring from the section of the attic that is being removed for the new roof. I also used hinges from three closet doors that will be replaced as part of the project. I purchased 2x4s from Home Depot. Each panel is separate. It is attached to the adjacent panel using the old hinges. This allows the sides to be taken apart simply by removing the pin from the hinge. I put felt pads on the bottom of the panels so that they slide easily on the floor. Weather stripping was attached to the inside of the panels to protect the piano from any scratching. The whole assembly can easily be pushed around without having to take it apart. I think the final product works very well. The build took place over parts of three days, June 27, 28, and 29. On the 29th the panels were brought inside and positioned around the piano. The hinges were attached to the box and everything was labeled to make disassembly and reassembly easy. The final piece was the lid. I used a single piece of plywood for the lid with 2x4 inner frame attached to keep it from sliding off. There are time lapse videos of June 27 and 28. This was my first project in my new garage. Granted, there aren't walls yet, but I did build it in the garage! |