Home > Rebuilding 2

Installing the Soundboard

During soundboard installation, the downbearing must be correctly positioned. If the downbearing is not properly positioned, the piano will be lacking in sound. In conjunction with the downbearing, the piano's action must also be regulated properly to the strings. Otherwise, it will suffer from a lack of power, which also affects sound. When rebuilding pianos it is vitally important that all parts fit together properly. Because each part of the piano influences the other in a profound way, a factory-like, assembly line approach to rebuilding is an inferior method since less care is taken to ensure that all parts are carefully coordinated to produce the best sound.

The Action

At Beethoven Pianos, we only use parts manufactured by Renner. Renner is an action parts manufacturer based in Germany whose beginnings date back to circa 1882. Most rebuilders agree that Renner parts are superior in quality and workmanship. While Renner is our favorite manufacturer of piano parts, our pick for hammers is New York Steinway. Hammers made by New York Steinway are very soft and require several voicings to extract sufficient tone from them, but the extra effort is well worth it. These hammers can be tweaked to precision and voiced to a tone that satisfies even the most demanding customer.

The Singing Strings

Traditionally, bass strings were wound by hand. With the advent of computerized machinery, these strings are now wound in factories and produce sounds adequate for most pianos. However, they lack the superb singing tone only found in hand-wound strings. For this reason, Beethoven Pianos uses only hand-wound strings in our rebuilt pianos.

The Cast Iron Harp

The harp is needed to counteract the tremendous forces created by the pull of the strings, which range from about 18,000-25,000 lbs. Without the harp you cannot tune the piano to the required tension. Before the advent of the modern harp even concert grand pianos lacked the ability to produce a powerful tone. Thus, the harp is the single most important innovation of the modern piano. Our pianos are always meticulously fitted with a solid cast iron harp.