JoshPrime Makes Stuff

Hey Reader, It is finally time to turn my attention to the piano itself. One of my favorite parts of taking on new projects is getting to learn just enough about them to be dangerous. For example, I am learning a lot about pianos and how they are built. For example, there are 10,000 moving parts on a typical piano. These are complex machines and are largely build by hand! I could totally talk about it with someone who builds pianos and now sound completely clueless. Don't ask me to build one though, that is a lot! The first thing I had to learn about was the random block of wood that is filled with screws. A cursory googling revealed that this is called the pin block. The pin block has pins - fancy screws - in it that perfectly align with the metal harp. The strings are then attached to the wood at the top and bottom of the upright piano, across the harp and into these pins. There are 230 pins in the piano. Many of the blogs I read about piano conversions talked about how...

Hey Reader, I am so excited to get started on the piano bar. I found a few more pictures of finished products and I am itching to get customizing. The problem will be having the right tools. I don't have a great deal of tools yet. Building my garage work area is going to be a whole other project some time in the future, so for now I am stuck looking at pretty things online. There are worse things. When you last saw the piano bench painted a dark gray color. I promised a complicated painting technique and I am about to deliver on that promise. I went over the bench with a much lighter gray color. It is pretty hard to tell in these pictures how much lighter it is. This is especially silly given that I have been working on this project outside. Since most of my crafting takes place after a long day of crime fighting, I find myself on my front porch in the dark. The idea is that I paint it a light color, and then sand the surface to reveal bits of the darker color underneath. Thi...

Hey reader! It is time for me to get a new couch. Way back when I moved to California five years ago - wow that feels like not a long time ago -  I bought this off-white leather couch from a furniture store that shall remain nameless. I asked if it was bonded leather - because honestly, bonded leather is the worst. I was assured by their slick salesperson that it was absolutely NOT bonded leather. Well, that salesperson should look into selling sand at the beach because even knowing what I didn't want didn't keep me from getting fooled. If you look at the picture, you can see the leather is flaking off - a sure sign that you are dealing with bonded leather. Bonded leather couches are only really made to last about 2-3 years and I stretched it to 5. I had to put a blanket over the back for a while or everything would be covered in off-white flakes. To be fair, the couch was cheap and I put it through the ringer. It was time to get rid of it. I wasn't really comfortable...

Hey Reader, We last talked about the piano bar back in May ! If you don't recall, I found myself a piano on Craig's list and the very nice person listing it took the harp out for me. It is now a piano skin. Calling it a piano skin is kind of horrifying, so I have vowed to keep doing it. I have been so busy with wall stuff that I really haven't touched the piano skin and have had to park around it in my garage for some time now. The walls are now done and there are even blinds in a select number of rooms. This has freed me up to get my garage a little less full of piano carcass. It is really beautiful, but it is also pretty beat up. Last week, I talked about the feeling of anxiety about starting a project, and this piano has become another one of those projects. In an attempt to ease into it, I decided to tackle the bench first. I wasn't sure I even wanted the bench when I found the piano, but now I have the chance to test out some techniques on a less intimidating...