Christmas present I just finished making

[KenTheDude]

It's a music box that plays the tune "Pretty Woman" when opened. The wood is actually not stained, that's it's natural color. The wood is called Padauk from Africa. The white accent stripe is poplar wood. It has a two level interior which is lined with padded velvet (the music box is under the upper, smaller level). Took me about three weekends to make (LOTS of sanding!) Just put the last coat of a mixture of tung oil & polyurethane on it a few hours ago.

[stevew2]

Thats nice it could he a heart, or some nice butt cheeks

[Rick]

Wow, that's incredible. You've got a great talent there Ken. Is that for your wife?

[Saint John]

Awesome work, Ken. But next time you might want to vacuum out the crystal meth leftovers featured in picture 3.

[Barb]

What a beautiful gift. I would love that!

[Blueskies]

Beautiful work, Ken! I'm sure your girlfriend is going to love it.

[Babyblue]

Wow, that's incredible. You've got a great talent there Ken. Is that for your wife?

I have to agree with you. Ken it is very beautiful she is a lucky lady & will love it.

[Deb]

Very nice Ken, she'll love it.

[DrFU]

Gorgeous work, Ken; the GF is going to be thrilled.

[artist4perry]

Ken you are a true artist.......that is lovely!

[CHELBEL]

Aside from the actual beauty of the box, what melts my heart is the time you invested for her. That alone means more than anything. She's a lucky lady! Now just put some chocolates inside and she'll be yours forever.

[YoungJRNY]

What a great gift. Money can't buy gifts from the inside and it looks like you really wanted to "Wow-zah" the Mrs.

Good work, man. I'm sure she'd love and appreciate it.

[Shadowsong]

Beautiful & thoughtful present.
Quite a nice talent you have
I esp like the tung oil & poly finish.
I restored the finish to my 100 yr old piano with a similar formula.
I forgot what it was but it is hard work especially if you are doing a big upright piano.

Your wood is glorious
resembles brazilian red wood.

My piano which is made by len Pratte in Montreal in the early 1900's is a sort of braziilan tigers wood.
Maybe you can identify it.

I can tell you it took about a month to do almost a dozen coats of the finish & actually lost sensation in my pinky from the many hours a day that I spent on it. I look back now & wonder how I did it but once get started on something I need to make sure its done right.
I'm very proud of it as the only wood work I did before that was to refinish my drum kit.

[Babyblue]

What a great gift. Money can't buy gifts from the inside and it looks like you really wanted to "Wow-zah" the Mrs.

Good work, man. I'm sure she'd love and appreciate it.

That is so true.And it is from the heart best of all.

Merry Christmas Ken & all here.

[KenTheDude]

Wow, that's incredible. You've got a great talent there Ken. Is that for your wife?

No Rick, not for my wife; I'm not married. Thanks for the compliment.

Thank you everyone for the kind words. I like to make things for gifts instead of buying something. If I have the time to do it, that's the route I always go.

[KenTheDude]

Beautiful & thoughtful present.
Quite a nice talent you have
I esp like the tung oil & poly finish.
I restored the finish to my 100 yr old piano with a similar formula.
I forgot what it was but it is hard work especially if you are doing a big upright piano.

Your wood is glorious
resembles brazilian red wood.

My piano which is made by len Pratte in Montreal in the early 1900's is a sort of braziilan tigers wood.
Maybe you can identify it.

I can tell you it took about a month to do almost a dozen coats of the finish & actually lost sensation in my pinky from the many hours a day that I spent on it. I look back now & wonder how I did it but once get started on something I need to make sure its done right.
I'm very proud of it as the only wood work I did before that was to refinish my drum kit.

It's hard to tell what kind of wood that is. It almost looks like stained zebrawood with those dark stripes through it. If you have an entire piano made out of zebrawood, you're sitting on a goldmine there. Beautiful piece!

[NealIsGod]

I just made a present, too. Wanna see it?

[bluejeangirl76]

Omg, Ken, that's awesome!!

[KenTheDude]

I just made a present, too. Wanna see it?

Ummm....I'm guessing my answer should be no?

[YoungJRNY]

I did a drawing of me and my girlie from last years Christmas, and I ended up framing this, and it looks awesome. I did this picture because it ties into her main gift (out of 1,000..can we say spoiled?) that is a huge blanket with this picture on it, so I tied it into everything. Pretty cool.

Here's the drawing, un-framed.

[tammy]

Wow, that's beautiful Ken! You are so talented & I'm sure the lucky recipient will appreciate it greatly. I love the sinuous lines. I've been making/sewing handmade gifts too but obviously no where near that excellence.

[SusieP]

that is lovely Ken.
What a craftsman you are.
Merry Christmas.

[stevew2]

that is lovely Ken.
What a craftsman you are.
Merry Christmas.

Did you use Craftsman tools to build it Ken ?

[Shadowsong]

Beautiful & thoughtful present.
Quite a nice talent you have
I esp like the tung oil & poly finish.
I restored the finish to my 100 yr old piano with a similar formula.
I forgot what it was but it is hard work especially if you are doing a big upright piano.

Your wood is glorious
resembles brazilian red wood.

My piano which is made by len Pratte in Montreal in the early 1900's is a sort of braziilan tigers wood.
Maybe you can identify it.

I can tell you it took about a month to do almost a dozen coats of the finish & actually lost sensation in my pinky from the many hours a day that I spent on it. I look back now & wonder how I did it but once get started on something I need to make sure its done right.
I'm very proud of it as the only wood work I did before that was to refinish my drum kit.

It's hard to tell what kind of wood that is. It almost looks like stained zebrawood with those dark stripes through it. If you have an entire piano made out of zebrawood, you're sitting on a goldmine there. Beautiful piece!

Wow, Thanks!
I call it tigers wood as it has the fat dark banding. I never heard of Zebra's wood.
I looked it up & zebra wood seems to have very narrow dark banding.

To me it looks like brazilian rosewood...
It's an old piano maybe 1915 to 1920 & its fun to have around.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... f%26sa%3DN

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... f%26sa%3DN

http://www.vmpsaudio.com/pics/RM30%20pi ... wood_s.jpg

The wood graining is glorious as is the tone of the piano.
I call it my angels piano as I just lay my hands on the keys & they make beautiful music from my thoughts & feelings.

My Mom bought it for me for Xmas a couple years ago & I haven't played it in awhile so maybe I should do that for xmas.

This is before I worked on it...What I did smoothed out the finish & brought back the color.
I used as I said tung oil, some minwax stain & may have mixed in some poly & mineral spirits
Can't remember but the stain covered all of the knicks & scuffs it got over the years.
Did almost 12 coats sanding down between coats with 600 sand paper to smooth out & bring back the life to the old alligatored crackled finish that happens with a piano that old. So it still has its original finish it just was freshened to bring back some of its original beauty.

I also took out every key & replaced bushing felts where needed to get the action to be as best I could. I don't even know how I did it.
A piano restorer from Canada sent me the parts & I just figured it out.
I also had to replace a few missing ivories on the keys so had to send out for those & shaped them to fit & glued them onto the keys.
So I put alot of work into restoring it & if I do say so myself I did a pretty good job...
I added my name on the inside of the last key next to the original signature of the man that made the piano all those years ago!

[stevew2]

Beautiful & thoughtful present.
Quite a nice talent you have
I esp like the tung oil & poly finish.
I restored the finish to my 100 yr old piano with a similar formula.
I forgot what it was but it is hard work especially if you are doing a big upright piano.

Your wood is glorious
resembles brazilian red wood.

My piano which is made by len Pratte in Montreal in the early 1900's is a sort of braziilan tigers wood.
Maybe you can identify it.

I can tell you it took about a month to do almost a dozen coats of the finish & actually lost sensation in my pinky from the many hours a day that I spent on it. I look back now & wonder how I did it but once get started on something I need to make sure its done right.
I'm very proud of it as the only wood work I did before that was to refinish my drum kit.

Very nice, What is the inside like?, does it hold a tune, do have the orginal ivories?

[WIX]

christ Ken, I mean, it is nice and all.

But if I was gonna give someone wood. I can think of a more meaningful way to give someone wood! I think this is where stevew adds his next comment

[stevew2]

Id fill the box with some magnim condoms and say Merry Christmas darling

[Shadowsong]

Beautiful & thoughtful present.
Quite a nice talent you have
I esp like the tung oil & poly finish.
I restored the finish to my 100 yr old piano with a similar formula.
I forgot what it was but it is hard work especially if you are doing a big upright piano.

Your wood is glorious
resembles brazilian red wood.

My piano which is made by len Pratte in Montreal in the early 1900's is a sort of braziilan tigers wood.
Maybe you can identify it.

I can tell you it took about a month to do almost a dozen coats of the finish & actually lost sensation in my pinky from the many hours a day that I spent on it. I look back now & wonder how I did it but once get started on something I need to make sure its done right.
I'm very proud of it as the only wood work I did before that was to refinish my drum kit.

Very nice, What is the inside like?, does it hold a tune, do have the orginal ivories?

You sound like you know about pianos.
I got it at the Salvation Army Xmas 2001.
I was just fooling around playing nothing on it & a woman came over & thanked me for the lovely music.
I was surprised as I was just laying my hands & just letting my fingers move where they wanted & that was it...music???



so I left it as it's not like you can carry it home but I couldn;t stop thinking about it.
I told my mom about it & she said I should get it as she'd give it to me for Christmas.

It does have most original ivories. Luckily when I took the piano apart I found a few original ivories that were under the keyboard. I still needed about 5 so I found old ivories that matched the color of mine & glued them to the keys where they were missing. I did have to do some sanding to get a perfect fit but it came out so that I can hardly find the ones I replaced.
All the people I called to do the piano would not go thru the trouble of getting the real ivory. They wanted to strip all the ivory & replace them all with plastic.
They said if a few came off then the rest would eventually come off. Well maybe but they seemed to be on ok & I wanted a piano with real ivory keys...Carnage!!!
Also got hefty quotes for refinishing with no guarantees so I decided I would try to do the work myself...LOL

I had it tuned after I finished the work. I haven't had it tuned since so I don't really use it.
I think he tuned it down a small bit off the A I think maybe 438 to give the strings/sound board a chance to stretch as it may not have been tuned in a long while.
He was going to take it up to tune in 6 mo or so but I never desired to spend the $ to retune it as it still sounded ok to me.

I just been trying to check the construction & it looks like it was made to the best of its day.
It has underdampener which is the best & it looks like its a diagonal soundboard which gives you the best sound & it is 52 inches tall so it has a nice size soundboard.
It was a long time ago but I seem to recall that the movement at least the keys were marked from Germany. I guess they used some parts from other countries.

Found this cool article about the builder of the piano...


The piano carries both the LEN (Louis Etienne Napoleon) Pratte name as well as Antonio Pratte under the top cover...
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/ ... RTU0002850





Yikes found one for sale
this one has not had a nice life...seems it spent all of its life in Montreal.
Pianos do not like changes in temperature or humidity.
Still, I'd love to have the piano bench as I have an old organ bench

http://montreal.kijiji.ca/c-acheter-et- ... dZ85044600

In all honesty mine doesn;t look as red..that's the flash bringing out that color.
In natural light its much darker...

Sorry for hijacking the thread but it was nice walking down memory lane.
I don't think I would ever do the work I did again. I worked an easy 6 weeks on it but I'm glad I was able to do it...

[Shadowsong]

[stevew2]

The piano looks really good. Ill give you my opinon later ,its to late to go in detail,Merry Chriistmas,nice refinishing job.It look better than frigas gay piano