Piano Repolishing
Piano re-polishing can be an extremely complex art, or a relatively simple one – when you know how. It is all down to works training & experience. Traditional French polishing is ideal for vintage instruments.. There are those that regularly refinish with a quick colour wash, followed by a spray, and then burnished; at the most highest prices. Spraying of various materials is not that easy, particularly on vertical surfaces. As for polyester, will it last? It is a very hard material when cured, but it is very much an inert substance.

Spraying of various materials is not that easy, particularly on vertical surfaces.  As for polyester, will it last? It is a very hard material when cured, but it is very much an inert substance, which will not shrink with the timber. Timber does shrink creating bubbles in the polyester and ultimately the polyester will crack.  It is not a pretty site. It  has happened within 15 years.





Piano Repair
The pianos action is a complex design of leverage, felts, cloths and leathers. It has to enable the pianist to play loud and soft.  Unfortunately many imported grand pianos do not accomplish this.  It is thought that those involved with what is essentially box shifting are clerical.  They have not realised that preparation for performance
is required.

Over the last 30 years there have been so many instruments sold that are “unplayable”, as a number of pianists have complained. To Westminster Piano restorers it is relatively easy to set up a grand piano action, to those who have not had the training, it is not so easy.

Bechstein Grand Pianos For Sale:

£5750    Bechstein Grand Piano 1898 Polished Ebony       
Good playing order. Most pleasant tone.£4950   

Bechstein Grand Piano 1895 Polished Rosewood     
Not a great finish, but quite reasonable touch and tone.

We sell these painos either “as is”, or  completely rebuilt. 

Both these pianos would make  excellent instruments at £10-12,000 inclusive. In a West End Premises these might have tickets of around £15/20,000!

Beware Of Coyboys
Like any other industry, the piano trade has its fair share of cowboys. Many fine pianos are ruined each year by so-called `technicians' who have either not been (properly) trained, or by those who simply can't be bothered to do the job properly, or by those who are simply incompetent. A young man had been working in a travel agency for some years.  He left and opened a music shop a few doors away. He then started to sell old, poor quality pianos from a barn in the New Forest.

The next step was a converted house next to a shopping parade with some new painos. Very nice, but no training other than the experience as outlined above. Another move. Became a Steinway agent. Attended a one day seminar at Steinway Hall and promoted himself as a Steinway Technician! There’s magic! Discounted Steinways all over the UK, but we understand from a source that there were complaints regarding the action regulating that a Steinway technician should have known about.

He was then left with one agency, who presumably were not so fussy. Over 30 years we have not seen one of their grand pianos that has been set up properly.

These piano cabinets tend now to made with waste materials such as MDF and chipboard, covered with an inert material called polyester, so there is now a demand for quality rebuilt pianos made of real timber.

Polyester has been known to bubble and split if the panel core shrinks.  MDF and chipboard is more likely to shrink than natural seasoned timber.

Piano buyers are very vulnerable to these matters.

Before Piano Repolishing

Faded,cracked and water damaged piano needing complete repolishing.

After Piano Repolishing

Completed piano in Mahogany stain and french polish.

Repolishing Piano

Above piano was the worse example we have photographed so far. In Ronald Ware's over 50 years experience in pianos he has seen many horrific sites.

With this site we will in time place a little shop of piano horrors here, of before and after shots of other badly damaged pianos.