Black French Polished Piano

[Rosalie]

We have a beutiful Black 3 Crown Ronisch Piano of about 100 yrs old - have been told by Tuner that it's well worth restoring. Have also been told that French Polishers don't like doing black - Any comments please?
How do I go about finding a good French Polisher to restore a black piano?

[Sturdee]

Rosalie,


Last year when I did a course in french polishing one of the girls was french polishing a small bedside table with black polish.

Because it was black shellac, mixed shellac and black dye, it took about 3 times longer than normal polishing would have taken. Whilst polishing every little scratch, mark or imperfection in the timber showed up slowing down the work. Also every dust spec marked the work requiring a very clean room to work in.

May be that's why professional french polishers don't want to do this kind of work, and if you find one he will charge much more than if it was a normal french polishing job.

Maybe do a course and learn to do it yourself would be advisable.


Peter.

[Iain]

Sure it's french polish and not the acid finish used on piano's.
Similar technique and damned hard work still.

[Rosalie]

Thanks Iain,

How can I tell the difference between Black French Polish & the Acid Finish you mentioned?

To look at the Piano, it is shiny black colour except where it seems to have worn thin & you can see a brown shade of the timber showing through. It seems a much thinner finnish than the very shiny modern lacquer finnishes.

[Rosalie]

Rosalie,


Last year when I did a course in french polishing one of the girls was french polishing a small bedside table with black polish.

Because it was black shellac, mixed shellac and black dye, it took about 3 times longer than normal polishing would have taken. Whilst polishing every little scratch, mark or imperfection in the timber showed up slowing down the work. Also every dust spec marked the work requiring a very clean room to work in.

May be that's why professional french polishers don't want to do this kind of work, and if you find one he will charge much more than if it was a normal french polishing job.

Maybe do a course and learn to do it yourself would be advisable.


Peter.

Thanks Sturdee,

Can you explain what Black Shellac is - Sorry, I know nothing much about French Polishing but want to gain some knowledge about what needs to be done to gain the best possible rennovation finish & hopefully choose the right Professional to do it!?!

[Sturdee]

Can you explain what Black Shellac is.

Rosalie,

Normal shellack is made by dissolving the shellack flakes with metho. To make black shellack you also add in black dye powder (which also dissolves in metho) to make it black.

In use you first stain the item with the dissolved black stain and then polish using the black shellack. This makes a deeper shinier gloss than if you stained it black and used ordinary shellack.


Peter.

[soundman]

It quite posible that it is infact black laquered.
certainly anything recent will be laquered probably two pack.
A friend of mine is a trained restorer /tuner and would not consider french polishing these days.
French polishing a full size upright would take ages. Once stripped and prepared you could probaly turn one round in laquer in a week.
Uprights would be a pain to do any rubbed finish on, too many nooks & crannies.
A good precat laquer will come up very nicely if skillfully applied & would be quite durable.

cheers

[pianoman]

Hi I know this thread is a little old , however thought I might contribute. I do this sort of work.
As soundman said nobody (no professionals) do french polish for this sort of job. It would cost far more than the piano is worth, even though 3 crowns are quite good. The number of crowns is not an indication of quality, but the number of royal houses supplied.
Think carefully about spending a lot of money on this piano, how good are the internals (action, hammers ect.) If these things have not been done since the piano was manufactured, it is not worth spending money on the case. A piano's value (particularly in Australia) is in it's condition as a playable musical instrument, if the case is good and the rest is duff, forget it. A full restoration job can cost up to $20,000, and no Ronisch will be worth that for a long time to come. the only pianos worth spending this kind of money on are Bluthners, Bechsteins & Steinways.
Soundman mentioned that it would take a week to do it with pre-cat once prepared, the devil is in the detail, the staining and spraying is the easy bit, (with practice) it's the stripping and filling that takes the time. If someone offers to do you a cheap job, ask to see their previous work. As no doubt has been mentioned on this forum many times the preparation is the most important part of getting a good finish. Most of the skimping is done there if the job is cheap, and a bad black finish is a disaster!!

Pianoman

[soundman]

There are heaps of good looking pianos out there with donged actions & in need of restringing.
My friend the restorer recons they are worth $50...... thats what he will charge you to take it away.

I have heard him say it take 6 months plus to do a full resto' by the time you wait for parts & stuff. Apart from casting tha harp, you could build a new one faster & cheaper.
The koreans certainly ca do it for a fraction of the cost.

cheers

[wombat47]

I'm curious - when the piano tuner said the piano was worth restoring, was he referring to the interior or the exterior?

Considering its age, I would guess that the least it would need is repinning and possibly restringing, both labour intensive and costly processes - but would preserve the value of the piano as an instrument.

If you are more interested in the antique appearance of the piano, do consider that refinishing the exterior may well decrease its value, which to some degree, is dependent on the normal wear and tear of the finish.

I have an beautiful old Lipp in burr walnut, the finish of which is in excellent condition. But in addition to repinning (some of the pins are wrapped in sandpaper to slow down slippage), the back board is cracked - so the piano is history.

The three offspring all learned on it (two going on to tertiary qualifications in music) and they also learned to tune other instruments to B flat so they could play in tune with each other.

But, for (their) sentimental reasons, I'm stuck with it. The best I can hope for is that one of them might take up woodwork - it would make beautiful boxes, complete with ebony and ivory decorations.

[pianoman]

I have an beautiful old Lipp in burr walnut, the finish of which is in excellent condition. But in addition to repinning (some of the pins are wrapped in sandpaper to slow down slippage), the back board is cracked - so the piano is history.

Wombat

At the risk of going a little off topic, it is a common misnomer that when a piano's soundboard is cracked it is a problem. See the link below from Steinway for an explanation

http://www.steinway.com/technical/soundboard.shtml

Pianoman

[wombat47]

Thanks for that Pianoman. I guess the piano tuner was wrong. Perhaps he wanted me to pay him to take it away??

[Rosalie]

Just replying to some of the questions I hadn't seen and for those who are interested.
When the piano tuner said our black Ronisch was in good condition, he meant playing condition and the cabinet as well. We checked with Ronish in Germany and this piano was made in their factory about 2008-09, so it is more than 100 years old. It also still has it's original ivory keys in good, almost white condition and it's two brass candelabras! The black/ebony french polish had some scratches and fine crazing and fading in a few places.
We had it re-polished in "black french polish" by one on the Leaver brothers from Leaver & Son in their Adelaide workshop in 2018 for around $5000-$6000 (this included some restoration to the workings of the piano). We feel very fortunate that we stumbled across their business as he is one of the very few people who still do black french polish. It looks beautiful! I'll try to attach a photo for those who are interested. The finish isn't perfect - it has a few marks but it is an old piano!

Before and After.

e IMG_7401e .jpgAttachment 502292IMG_4356 e.jpg

[clear out]

Thanks for telling us how it went.
I started reading and noticed the 2005 date and thought ‘where’s this going?’
A mate here in Sydney showed me black French polish back in the late 1980s.
I did a chair and it looks fabulous, like your piano.
H.

[riverbuilder]

Wow! Just magnificent.