Adam Savage's One Day Builds: Miniature Piano!

adam savage here in my cave uh with the piano this is the famous shonenhut kids piano um and i  picked this one up at an auction site for a song   uh and i also picked up this one at an auction  an auction site for a song they're both in a   really relatively sad state of disrepair my  one day build today is to use these two pianos   to make a working piano yeah i'm going to take  them apart i'm going to put them back together   they may include very little of the original  pianos i am not sure i one's got 18 keys oh   sorry 18 white keys across the other has 15  they seem to be two different kinds of keys   i this is a plan i concocted a few  months ago and i bought these have   been sitting over in the corner and i haven't  yet figured out exactly how to tackle this so   we're just gonna tackle it before i figured  out exactly how to tackle it um yeah   they they run on um they work by pounding  little little little here you can see it here   see that there's little wires uh basically  little little rods little metal rods and   they ring i know somewhat um i have a  couple questions here i wonder if i can   increase the resonance that'd be nice  um you can see one of these being used   in okay go's latest video for uh all together  now they're beautiful uh uh pandemic song um   we're all still the same everything's untouched  but forever changed yeah there's a piano solo   on the show and hud piano in that song i  tend to notice that sort of thing all right i also might be able to adjust  the tuning just a little bit   just a little bit we will see yeah here it  goes i really have no idea if i'm going to   end up with a piano at the end of this but  i've always wanted one of these working if somebody already tried  to repair this one this key is a not unreasonable attempt  to solve the problem but oh well at least i can keep the  shonen hut logo logo logo logo two okay um you know it's always funny what  happens when you start to take something   apart i didn't have a plan when i started but  now i have a plan um between these two pianos   that word is always going to be in quotes um  this is definitely the one i am going to restore   it has a couple of big problems one is the  masonite backboard the masonite backboard that the the main uh metal rods that make the sounds  the backboard is separated from the piano so   i have to replace that and i'll use some really  nice aircraft ply for that uh there's some felt   along the bottom of this one this is just in  every way a more robust and better made piano   um it's got a separate hammer arrangement which  is also a little sticky so i'll need to give that   a little bit of oil and love i will place the  felt under here but what do i do about these two broken keys one just four six nine 13. oh i think i can do it okay that's enough for the white keys enough for the black keys okay   i've decided um i am going to attempt  to remake all the white keys out of this hardwood that i've got it's going to take  some engineering uh but it shouldn't be too hard   i'm going to leave the black keys  out of the plastic although i may   add a little weight to them to  give them a little more touch   i'm going to replace the felt inside  here replace this backboard and i'm kind of wondering if i want  to tune this let's see here i don't know i don't know if i can tune it i  mean you can see one of the things that they   did is they they sharpen the edges they sharpen  the intersection with the hole here to give it oh that was almost carol the bells um so yeah yeah   i'm going to start with the  hardest part first which is a million years ago i'm stopping to  tell you a story a million years ago a million years ago i went to london and i uh bob godfrey who is an old friend  of my dad's somehow managed to get me   a tour of the london college of furniture design  and it was amazing it was amazing so the london   college of furniture design this is 1985-86 um  they taught the vocation of high-end making so   high-end furniture making plywood bending  carpentry but also musical instruments so   i was going through like master's programs  where your freaking thesis was a grand piano   rooms full of people making cellos  and guitars it was oh it was amazing um that's what i'm thinking about here i was  like watching people literally like everything   down to hand winding the strings of the piano and  doing your own glue up of every felt hammer every   student did that so i'm about to kind  of take a walk down my memory lane   and uh yeah i got a lot of i need five six  seven eight nine ten dollars i need 18 blanks   out of this stuff um this is the wood  that asa hillis used for my kubrick chair   it's nice and dense it should give a nice feel  these feel a little yeah hear that hear that yeah   no no bueno um i really appreciate the attempt  this guy made to use acrylic and styrene and some   pine and a screw for weight to remake a key that  is he did a nice job and it fit well we're just we're gonna go in in spirit and change the hole i needed 18 keys and i've got 19 uh which is great  a little tight for my love but it's a nice wood   it's got a lightness to it i'm  trying to figure out how to engineer   the little pivot slots in all of  these and i think i'm going to   i think i'm going to tape them all together on a  single board yeah i think i'm going to measure it you know when i do stuff like this i wonder if  there are people who make pianos who are watching   this and like knowing they can tell i'm sure  of this they can tell the pitfalls that i don't   yet see coming even with something like as  primitive as this little show piano key right with   not a lot of mechanical complexity to it and yet  i know there is some relationship between stuff   right um okay so i'm now trying to engineer i have  to do two things to the keys they're all mounted   uh top down right so that's the top and what  i'm going to do here is i'm going to mill out   the slot and that's the pivot slot that allows the  key to balance and there is my mark for the slot   i'm going to cut this out yeah i'm  debating on how to cut this out   i've got a ball end mill i've got a ball end mill  here which i like uh that matches the radius of   the bottom of this how do i fan it out i could do  it on the table saw but frankly i might just like   cut a piece of wood that's that angle  and put sandpaper on it and just slowly i think that's what woodford guitars would do  creep up on it i he's my inspiration for this   build musical instrument built ted woodford  is my spirit angel on this one um okay so   front underside those are all  nice everything looks good   then there's also this little premonitory and this  engages with the felt that kicks the key up so this is cut to the dimensions of the footprint  of this little pyramid but i have to cut out   18 of them and put them in and glue them down angle finding on the angle on this guy using a beautiful old star at  protractor that i picked up on   ebay oh no no no i'm trying to do the  ah that's three different angles i'm   measuring and i keep forgetting which one  i'm actually doing all right that that is   that's beautiful that's the angle of the  sides of the triangle and that is 10 degrees all right that's not safe i don't want  to do that i don't want to i don't   one side is easy to cut the other side oh it's  so easy to cut i have figured out a solution   um this this angle here is 25 degrees so i set  my miter gauge for my bandsaw at 25 degrees   i've got my chunks of wood here and uh what  i do let me bring you in here to see this so what i'm doing is i'm making a slice that sets the first 25 degree angle right that one  that's 25 degrees so then i split this over bring   it over to the fence that matches exactly look at  that yeah um there'll be some post-processing of   these some sanding after the fact and there'll be  some winners and some losers as it were but yeah   um i only need 18 of these i'm gonna  i'm gonna start now all right here we go so there they are i completed little triangles i needed 18 i made 20. i buy i what you heard were the sounds  of me cutting it on the table saw   bad solenoid bandsaw noises yeah what  you heard was me getting up the nerve   and cutting a nice little 10 degree  right there and you can take a look let's see yep yeah yeah yeah yep yep yep  i really dig it matches hey you know what   i have i have a parts cleaner you know what  i'm going to do i'm going to clean some parts   yeah i built this part cleaner a while back  and i got this rusty this rusty old piano   soundboard soundboard tuning fork you know  what i mean i'm gonna clean the rust off so join me now won't you so so you know what's really clear when i'm  doing this is that this was made by hand   i can see these holes aren't exactly perfectly  spaced um and there's just a lot of like   uh workmanship that i can see this is not a this  is not built in some giant factory it's probably a   small factory oh i'm so sure some of you are going  to link me to some sites and talk about this piano company this is very pleasurable work great oh my gosh they get smaller they  get more level i don't know if cora   cause correlation equals causality but it's  certainly the first place to start looking it's important to remember that every single  time each one of these was bent just a little bit   it's added to a little bit of metal fatigue  in a weak spot uh and so it's just you know   you don't have an endless  number of chances to bend these all right come on come on there we go all right um   let's line up and look at them like  this does this matter oh wow damn okay uh let's i don't expect this is going to  make it sound better but let's hear it yeah it's an anemic sound but that  it's definitely better than it was   and let's uh i'll try and take  care of this business up here all right we're moving along  um this is a rust protector um   that's great that'll sit over here for a while okay um i've mapped out the keys here there  are five different kinds uh the first kind   i'm gonna cut is a left uh cut but that's  the same as the right cut on the other side   so there's 10 of those and i'm basically  i'm softening the edges of the pivot point back one one one one one three three three three so then  there's three twos which are an even split two   two two fours one and two four four and two fives  right five five and then i've got my big fat key   down there so um ones and threes are all gonna  get hit at the same time how am i gonna cut them   um i'm gonna cut them on the mill awesome all right in a case like this where the marking and  the cutting are um incredibly variegated   uh really your task becomes information  management like that's one of the more   important aspects of this right here i'm just  going to make that quite dark so i can see it   this is the underside this is the underside  yep yep yep okay so now the question is yeah that's the underside so great so i could just like start to cut these but i  actually want to see them all extent before i   do any cutting because i just i it's just best  practice to do that then if i set these like i'm   going to set up the ones and the twos so that  they're opposed to each other but that i only   have to make one cut to cut all 10 of those  pieces and that's more than half my work done   in a single pass on the mill um but like there are  so many left and right aspects of this to maintain   if i get one thing wrong i could screw  up half a dozen pieces and that's bad so it's the threes that are the other  side one two three four five okay so   the three is like this and goes wait a second the  ones and threes are not the same no they're not okay well then yeah slightly different nope okay  we'll do it so three is like this which means so i'm not cutting the ones and threes at the  same time because they're not the same cut   it's only about 60 thou  difference but that's enough   i'm sure some piano people were like no ones  and threes are not the same so that gets cut out there are three twos and the twos are  an even split they are an even split let's just double check that even split it's not quite an even split is that really  yes it isn't even split okay good so the twos i know i should be using a marking  gauge for this but you know what   this works fine and it's just for  helping me understand where i'm at two fours two fives four is not an even  split right so make sure i do it upside down this should take me about 30 minutes of  cutting on the lathe to cut all these out i'm wondering about what big screw-up  is gonna happen because i'm sure i'm   gonna screw something up i just don't  know is it gonna be one of these keys   the fours are correct the fours are  correct the twos are correct wait a second   am i fives that's the only one left  fives all right so fives go like this yep just the number of times marking out and  shading the areas that i'm supposed to cut out   has saved my ass a million here are  all the piano keys marked for cutting   the five different kinds here  they are marked for measuring   oh no what what you heard me complaining  about was one of the keys dropped   and shattered but that's why i made an  extra key however i only have one extra so there's a couple of things i would like to  highlight here one is uh yes i have chucked a   router bit into my mill that works just fine i'm  operating at about 3 200 rpm i think 35. um second   is i'm getting within like 10th out of each of  these measurements actually i think i'm actually   i'm probably getting even a little bit closer than  that but you know because this is wood and there's   a lot of slop in this i'm not like being crazy  obsessive i'm only being moderately obsessed um   but it's having great results and i have this is  the third to last cut um i can bring this over   to the middle of the line and i can take that all right okay here we go i have also done something else which is instead  of putting in a vice stop i'm literally just   holding up a parallel against the end of the  vice again that's accurate within like a sheet   of paper or so i mean it's not that bad um again  this was metal and these were mechanical parts i   had to work together i'd go with a more robust  and repeatable buy stuff but this is plenty   um and when i turn this over what you'll  see is that now i can't just rest it on the   parallels because it's got this notch cut out  of it so i bring it into uh some orientation   and it lined up with the vise that's good  and then i stack up some of my parallels   and again this is not hyper accurate but it's  moderately accurate and then i just use my feel you've got some springiness in the vise you've  got some ability to kind of move it around um yep yep tighten it in i like it and now  when i feel this with my fingers here that is within a very small  distance of being exactly right   um i'm already at that cut point  so i'm just going to cut that point the last cut huzzah that might be the last cut oh also  the last thing i did was for every single   cut i had fragile pieces on both  sides of the wood to prevent the   you know the splintering out here come  the last two pieces uh five and five look at that see what we can do see what we can  do okay so is every single one of these stalks on   the back the same width but half inch they're  all about a half inch give or take about 40 i don't know why i'm making a linking sound  but really it just seems like what's required so now i'm going to start these  are all garbage every last   later um what i really need to do is  pull out this backboard and remake it   and put it back in with the sound  board on it sorry with the um   with the chimes what the hell do i call that  thing the harp it's not a harp because there's   no strings in it the reason i have to  get the um the harp in here is because   if there are any adjustments i need to make  between the keys and their relationship   to the structure i need to know it now not  later i need to not be surprised by that   um okay so what i need is a piece of plywood that  is 18 minus a shave by three and three quarters this will be my new back plate for  the harp it is six ply aircraft   plywood should make a nice a  much nicer resonator than this um whatever the hell that is oh wow you need help down there don't yes  i'll get to you in a bit but right now   yeah right now i think we just put this soundboard shaping one two three four putting back  in the four original screws yeah i think it's a much better resonator  i'm actually kind of excited about it   yeah okay so there's that and then   there is this and we're gonna pop this in and  we're gonna put it back in with all the original hardware sounds pretty good i don't hear any dead spots yet   but hope springs eternal murphy's  law will out let's see here this one this one is weird  we'll deal with you later   the felt on all of these   seems like it's actually pretty good it all feels  about the same amount of springiness it's old but   i don't think i need to redo those i'm going  to add a little bit of light machine oil here just can't hurt have a little bit of lubrication  in there and then i'm going to let the lubrication   spread around with a fun thing there are some of  these little spacers to deal with key vagaries there we are a little more bearing action i think i need  to take this all the way apart i think i just   need to get whatever oil and grease and lines  there because i just i it shouldn't be this   there shouldn't be this much  friction no there really shouldn't   and that's the n minus one okay so let  me get some steel wool on this oh yeah   yeah i can feel there's like all sorts  of stuff going on on this thing um i'm going to take this one step further  and hit it on my polishing wheel i know i was trying to take a  shortcut nothing beats doing it right that's totally a ted woodford type of  phrase i was trying to take not saying   that ted would take a shortcut just  said the kind of resignation in my voice for the record i don't think these are different i  think they're probably injection molded out all at   once um which would for their numbers each being  slightly different um but with one of these things   if you get the if you get it wrong and you're  wrong yeah that's that's bad mojo right there all right this everything slips  past each other really nicely i've got some remnants of machine oil in there  which is exactly what i would like i don't   want a lot i just want to know it'll also help  prevent any rust good atmosphere for everything that that's a huge difference mechanically damn   that was worth every second of the  refinement okay so now i guess i can and oh these interim sounds are delightful oh  yeah i'm sure you saw it coming oh yeah okay foreign all right well my piano keys are in the right  shape they are the right form factor they are   improperly weighted uh it needs to be back  weighted and right now they were front heavy so uh   i did a sample i put this on the mill look at that  i machined out a little pocket and lo sure enough   when i put it in here it's now properly back heavy excellent so i just have to do this to the other 17 keys there we go and we're done we're done look at  this look at how pretty all that is   oh so gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous um okay so one all right excellent so so starting to look like something time to glue  on the little pyramids time to glue on the   little pyramids okay so i'm putting in the little  pyramids that like the black keys allow me to uh yeah play the piano all right so now i've got those in there cow that might be that might be my first piano key   that i've ever met oh oh oh oh oh yep no  that's not in it's not glued doesn't work   i'm overly optimistic about what thin crazy glue  can do that is somewhat solid yes put it in here oh i see right i think i can use this velcro  and whoa look at that okay so i was   thinking i need you hear this  that sound i gotta get rid of   that sound so i figure i'd put a piece  of this uh velcro loop underneath it i'm stuck on you sweetie bye   the thing is is that the piece of velcro i  pulled off the roll absolutely perfect size what i noticed was the action on  the black keys was just a little   bit more robust and thus i this i wanted that i'm gonna assembly line this draw all the holes i don't know why this story just occurred  to me but a million years ago i was driving   through new york with my friend greg uh  now known as nitosh and greg and i were   driving a van we were working on a film shoot  so we're driving a van and we're driving through   the lower east side and we ended up oh that's it  right we saw a couple of we saw a couple of uh a   couple of kids we were kids too but they were even  younger than us we were like 20 21 22 these kids   were like 18 19 and they were nyu film students  totally clearly and they were shooting a film   and they were like doing parking management for  the film like because greg and i worked in film   in new york we we totally could tell what jobs  these people had and exactly what they were doing   and as we were like maneuvering around them in  this traffic situation we're like kind of having   a funny little moment with them like they were  directing us and we were being cool and it was fun   and then greg goes rolls down his window and says  what are you working on and they immediately go   blank-faced like we're not supposed to tell anyone  and he goes oh well i'll be mr and mrs importance   and every now and then that's i'm reminded of that  yeah i know the stories that show up in our heads   barreling down on it um before  final assembly i will tell you   i'm going to give these keys a coat of clear coat i'm not going to be super  precious about the clear code   as i've been precious about everything  else until now um just something for   a little more refined look and some protection  i'll tell you a bit of engineering know how i   utilized on this is it took me a lot less time  to make these piano keys because these were an   add-on and not integral to the piece of wood that  was like totally clear to me from the get-go that   uh those would be added on i get to do so many  more operations in a much easier fashion that way okay oh now it's time for the  okay for the screws i'm gonna   hand place each one alexa  play all together now by ok go all together now by ok go on amazon music   so let's secure that first what a great sound awesome let's  get some rubber feet on this puppy   yeah nice big fat rubber feet  rubber feet yes wood screws excellent um i am advocating for something  that i've been doing a a few times   i've been doing it more and more over the last  year and now i think it's time to codify it as   a genuine philosophy about making and that  is taking credit that's signing your work um   this showing this is a piano uh i've had a lot  of fun with it and i took it all you know a good   portion of the way apart and put it back together  and i signed it repaired and new keys added 521 by   adam savage signed it san francisco uh oh i'll say  california like who knows how long in the future um there we go um this is how makers talk to  each other across the ages the couple of times   i've like cracked a piece of furniture and found  writing in it um and sometimes even somebody's   handwritten note super thrilling so my fellow  repair people builders makers sign your work talk   to each other across the ages what could be better  seriously this is it we're in final assembly lads   lads and lasses i can't let's cut it  let's quit it let's cut it into chunks damn milwaukee scissors be beefy okay i gotta assembly line  this thing there's a lot of   there's a lot of balls in the  air well it's a colliding jerry so so well that was better that one just sounds like crap so a little bit of uh true romance for you tony  scott fans out there um that is it for my show   and hut piano it is add another nail there but i  have always wanted a working one of these and now now i have one thank you guys so much  for joining me for this one day build   i'm glad to clear this off my books and clear  the corner that this was taken up in the cave   just about 130 more of those and  we'll be all cleaned up in here   someday thank you guys so much for  joining me for this one day build   stay safe and i will see you next time thank you  guys so much for watching that video if you'd   like to further support us here at tested one of  the single best ways you can do it is through a   tested membership now there's a link below  as to the various levels of tested membership   but at the top level i want to explain it's so  much more than videos that are exclusive there   are q a's there are live streams there are some  exclusive videos but the thing i love most about   the tested membership is the interactivity the  constant and wonderful communication between the   tested members and not just me but our entire team  every day it feels more and more like a beautiful   community just devoted to the joys of making so  join up and become one of us one of us one of us

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 281,992

Rating: 4.9277959 out of 5

Keywords: tested, adam savage, one day builds, one day build adam savage, adam savage tested, toy piano, how to fix piano keys, schoenhut kids' baby grand, schoenhut piano, schoenhut mini piano, how to fix a toy piano, adam savage toy piano, adam savage one day build, how pianos work, how toy pianos work, adam savage schoenhut, how to repair a schoenhut, how to fix a shoenhut, broken toy piano, adam savage woodworking, how to fix broken piano keys, how to fix a broken toy piano

Id: OUHShx43JVU

Length: 61min 48sec (3708 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 02 2021