We go to great lengths to make sure that our refurbished Steinway pianos are the best available on the market. We take the initial step of choosing only high quality models to undergo restoration, choosing instruments that have excellent soundboards, positive down bearing and crowning, to make sure that our pianos always retain the Steinway tone. We never take Steinway pianos for restoration if they have repaired or damaged soundboards which means we keep a high quality threshold for selecting instruments to restore.
Because Steinway use Renner parts for the piano action, we also take care only to use Renner parts in all of our Steinway pianos. Renner are the world’s leading manufacturer of piano action parts, they use high quality raw materials and their precision engineering means they produce, as you’d expect for Steinway, great quality parts. Renner parts are stamped and certificated, so there’s no mistaking them, and our technicians receive official training from Renner in Grand Hammer Hanging. We follow to this to the finest detail, only using even the glues supplied by Renner – traditional animal hide glues specifically formulated for assembling piano parts.
For similar reasons, when it come to replacing strings, we only use EKA. These are, without doubt for us, the highest grade, premium piano strings available in the UK (and we use them in all piano restorations, not just for Steinway pianos).
We are also really fortunate to have our own in-house French polishing expertise . Most modern Steinway pianos have a black gloss finish, but just 50 years ago, Steinway pianos were mostly available in an array of wood finishes Pianos from this time often feature delicate rosewood veneers that can only be restored successfully through the meticulous process of French polishing, all of which we do by hand. Machine polishing isn’t an option in our opinion for the restoration of valuable pianos. A machine can often work too deeply into the veneer and give an uneven finis and with traditional hand-polishing techniques, matching those which would have been used during the original construction, it adds real authenticity to the restored instrument which we think is important. Our expert French polisher has decades of experience: a fantastic asset for us in an industry where the skill is ever more scarce.
All our Steinway pianos are set up by experienced ex-Steinway technicians, who understand the subtleties of the touch and tone of an authentic Steinway piano.