Pleyel 1907 upright piano restoration

Introduction

This page describes the (ongoing) restoration of a 1907 Pleyel upright piano. The piano was retrieved from a bar in Ghent (Belgium) that switched owners; the new owners didn’t want to keep it, and gave it away.

The piano has suffered during its years in the bar: it was covered in candle wax, in several places the oak veneer is cracked and detaching, the keyboard cover is cracked through completely, and the keyboard has a lot of water (or rather, beer) damage. Only a few keys at either ends of the keyboard move at all and produce some sound. In addition it has been re-varnished with a dark varnish.

To say that it was in bad shape would be the understatement of the year…

The action of the piano is a Schwander action, and the keyboard is a Schwander keyboard as well. In other words, they would seem to be “regular” items, and not (more valuable) Pleyel-specific ones. It looks like all the strings, action parts and keyboard parts are still present.

The piano arrived at my house on April 11, 2025. The goal is to restore it to playable condition, and also to improve the cabinet by cleaning it up, repairing broken parts, and removing the dark varnish layer to restore the original oak color.

Interestingly, the piano contained a greeting from the past, found under the keys when disassembling the keyboard:

This postcard is dated a year before the piano was made, and was sent to a family living in Ghent. I choose to believe that that family bought the piano when it was new, and that it never left Ghent in the ~120 years since then.

The cabinet (1)

The lower panel from the cabinet, which sits between the pedals and the keyboard, was the first item I looked at when it comes to the cabinet. Given that it is the “least visible” part of the cabinet, it is a good candidate to establish the cleanup procedure for the rest of the cabinet.

The panel comes apart as several pieces: the outer frame, the inner panel, and two sets of four slats that keep the inner panel in place within the frame. All items were sanded, and on the inner panel, the edges of the oak veneer needed to be re-glued to the panel. Finally all items were treated with a transparent, semi-glossy varnish.

This is what the panel looks like after cleaning it up:

The keyboard supports has also been fully sanded to remove the old varnish layers, and then re-varnished with a clear varnish. The left photo shows the left support before it was cleaned, and the right one after it was cleaned, next to each other to show the color difference. The photo on the right shows both supports fully done:

The keyboard bottom, on which the keyboard is mounted, has a decorative edge with protruding ridges on the top and the bottom. Because these protrude the furthest, below the keyboard cover, they were pretty badly damaged from being bumped into.

For the top ridge, the best solution was to create a replacement ridge, and to remove the original one entirely. This was easily and quickly done by routing just deep enough to only remove the ridge, and leave the rest of the decorative edge in place. The replacement ridge was the glued in place of the old one.

The keyboard

As expected, the key bed was in very bad shape. After removing the keys, it turns out that most of the pins, especially the front rail pins, have rusted. No wonder the keys cannot be pressed; the pins have expanded from the rust enough to block the keys.

After removing all the felt items, and after a lot of sanding both pins and wood, the key bed looks serviceable again:

The keys themselves had to be cleaned individually. Unfortunately, several of the original ivory keytops were missing, others were damaged, and many also had discolorations beyond yellowing, so the keytops were not salvageable. Many keys had black stains from water damage, some to the point where mold was visible, and several keys were twisted longitudinally, or bent upwards as a consequence of repeated water ingress. For all keys, the cloth bushings had to be removed (if they hadn’t already rotten away), and replaced with new cloth:

Many of the keys sustained water damage. Several were twisted, where the front part of the key (which absorbed water repeatedly) had twisted sideways so that one edge of the key sat slightly higher than the opposing edge of the same key. Several were also bent upwards, so that the front of the keys would sit higher than neighboring keys:

The following pictures show the difference that adding paper shims below a key on the balance rail makes: adding two thin paper shims will lift the front of the key by almost a millimeter:

This is the keyboard with the black keys in place, and adjusted to be 13mm above the white keys:

The action

Wippen & Jack

The wippen and jack assemblies were all thoroughly cleaned. The felt bushings were reamed were needed, and new center pins were put in place.

Hammers

Dampers

All dampers needed a full overhaul. The felts were dirty and worn, the leather strips on the bottom (where the damper spoons push) were worn, and quite a few of the damper springs had broken off.

All damper springs were replaced with new ones, to make sure the tension would be the same in all dampers.

The damper springs are held in place with rope. In order to replace the damper springs, the rope had to come out. Then the spring can be pulled out, and a new one put in its place. Then new rope is pulled through the flange to keep the spring in place:

The center pin, the damper felt and the leather strip were replaced as well:

The strings and the sound board

Strings

Pin block and sound board

Miscellaneous smaller repairs

Decorative slats in front of the keyboard and on top of the keys

Across the whole keyboard, just above the keys, sits a removable wood slat that has the brand name “Pleyel” on it. In front of the keys there is also a removable wood slat, which contains the lock.

Left to do on the “Pleyel” slat atop they keys is to put a strip of fabric that fills the void between the tops of the keys and the slat. On this piano, the fabric had mostly rotted away, but what was still there shows a strip of fabric folded back onto itself, and glued onto the slat. The fabric resembled piping ribbon.

Sheet music stand

The sheet music stand was cleaned up: the old dark varnish was sanded off, and new varnish applied. The brass rivets were cleaned and polished, as well as the brass hinges that allow the stand to be folded inside the piano.

Pedals

The pedals are made of brass, and had turned completely black.

In the two pedal mechanisms one of the springs was missing, and the leather dampers were in bad condition, so they had to be replaced with fresh leather.

Hinges

There are two piano hinges on this piano, and many small hinges and screws. They are all made of brass, and had to be cleaned accordingly.