For anyone interested, there's a really great documentary that I believe is still on Netflix called "Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037".
The process really is amazing.
The process really is amazing.
From it I remember a guy who goes to Tacoma a few times a year to look at Sitka spruce really carefully, another who guards their hand planes, which they can't get anymore, stuff like that. I also have a friend who's a concert pianist and who's quite obsessive about tuning, voicing, regulation, and her (Model C?) sounds absolutely amazing.
The one I did had it's strings cut out, the outside was sanded down to wood, bits and pieces were strewn all over Poland. I got to know an expert piano repairman/tuner from the local conservatory and he gave me a mountain of tips&tricks to work off, without that I would have never managed the job. That was a fun project. And not just a little bit dangerous, tuning up a fair sized piano from scratch is a delicate job. You really don't want to unevenly stress the frame and find out what it is like when 13 tonnes of tension is released all at once.
There are clips on youtube.