Piano Restoration – Welcome Home 鋼琴大翻新 – 回家篇

The full restoration of our Yamaha U1 piano, that was sent to the workshop in last April was completed for quite a while. As I was tied up with other bits and pieces, I failed to provide a timely update on the works. So let me wrap it up in this post.

After I came back from our Scotland summer holidays, I received a call from Mr. Fadi that the piano restoration was almost completed and he invited us to visit the Workshop to see if any further fine tunings would be required. Furthermore, should there be any other needs, they could try to accomplish all together.

家裏的鋼琴上年四月中運回 workshop 後，翻新工作早已完成。只因其他鎖碎事情，我遲遲未有作更新，就讓我今天來個總結吧！

暑假從蘇格蘭回來便收到琴行通知，鋼琴翻新已差不多完工，Mr. Fadi 邀請我們到琴行試琴，看看有甚麽地方要再作調教，另外如有其他需要亦可一併完成。

---

Other than the piano bridge that was initially identified, cracks were also found on the piano bridge at the bottom of the sound board. Upon replacement with new bridges available from Yamaha bridges, the technician dried the soundboard and applied several layers of protective vanish.

除了早前預計要更換的 bridge 外，最下方的另一條 bridge 亦因有裂縫而需同時更換。當完成了 Yamaha 原廠 bridges 的安裝後，技師便為 sound board 作乾燥處理及重新掃上多層的保護膜。

The full restoration covered a lot of components such as tuning pins, keyboard pins that must be repaired or replaced. In addition, felts of all the hammer heads, damper heads, piano keys as well as those oxidised strings were also need to be replaced. The associated works were so enormous and complicated which explained why the restoration took so long.

由於是全面翻新，鋼琴內很多零件如 tuning pins，keyboard pins 等要修復或更換，再者 hammer heads、damper heads、琴鍵的絨氈與及絃線等亦需重新更換，工序多之餘亦非常複雜，正好解釋為何翻新需時這麽久。

As part of the restoration, the paint surfaces and metal parts of the piano were also re-polished in addition to the cleaning works. No wonder I was really surprised when I first saw the finished product and thought it was a new piano!

翻新工程除了內部清潔外，鋼琴的漆面，金屬部份亦經重新打磨，難怪當我第一眼看到完成品亦感驚訝，還以為是一座新琴！

Upon some testing works, my son observed that the tones of the restored U1 piano were much brighter with clarity. As for the newly installed adsilent silent piano module, he found it simple to use and to be honest, he was also astonished to find that its sound quality was on par with the authentic Yamaha U1 acoustic piano.

兒子測試一輪後，感覺整體音色比之前清𥇦、明亮，更感嘆 adsilent 靜音系統的音質絕不遜色於真實鋼琴，使用上亦非常簡單。

( Oops, it was really embarrassing! While I was recording the piano testing, a vehicle outside the workshop had its anti-theft alarm system triggered for unknown reason 😬 )

( 真有點尷尬，在我正在為試琴錄音的時候，workshop 外剛巧有車輛的防盗系统不知何故而被觸發 😬 )

---

In order not to make any scratches to our wooden floor if the piano needed to be relocated in the near future, Mr. Fadi recommended to replace the existing caster wheels with quality Polyurethane coated caster wheels.

由於家中使用木地板，為方便日後作放置上的改動及減低對地板的損害，Mr. Fadi 亦建議替鋼琴𨍭用了較高質的滾輪。

With so many rounds of fine-tuning, the Yamaha U1 piano was finally returned to our lovely home.

經過一連串的調整，這座 Yamaha U1 終於回家了。

After returning the piano home, Mr. Fadi also arranged professional technician to provide another round of fine tuning to ensure that the piano was not seriously affected by the transportation process.

運返家中後，Mr. Fadi 亦安排了專業技師上門再作調較，確保鋼琴沒有受運送過程所影響。

May be due to the climate variation between Hong Kong and UK as well as our improper maintenance arrangement, considerable damages were made to our Yamaha U1 piano which incurred such a long restoration work.

Many thanks to Mr. Fadi for the restoration arrangement that help to keep the restoration cost at a reasonable level without breaking my budget.

可能因為氣候差異及之前保養不妥善，導致鋼琴很多地方有損毀，亦令翻新這座鋼琴需時甚久。

很多謝 Mr. Fadi 的維修安排，把翻新費用維持於合理水平，沒有令我大失預算。

---

You may find my collection of piano relocation & restoration posts listed below.

有興趣的話，可以看看下列我其他鋼琴翻新文章。

• Bringing your Piano to UK 鋼琴也移民
• Piano Restoration – Part 1 鋼琴大翻新 (一)
• Piano Restoration – Part 2 鋼琴大翻新 (二)