Piano to desk

[Steve Jenkins]

A friend of mine wanted his piano converted to a desk. The desk top is made from block mottled Makore that I hadIMG_1427.jpg
I don’t have a pic with the original legs but they are on it in his house

[Lee Schierer]

Interesting conversion, are the keys covered with glass and are they fixed in place?

[Maurice Mcmurry]

That will be interesting! I wonder if those are ivory key-tops. I have a few old ivory piano key-tops. I had in mind to use them for inlay. I have been advised to give them to a trusted piano tech so they can be legally incorporated into a grandfathered situation. You can not sell ivory key-tops but you are free to throw them away. I was surprised to learn that throwing them away is P.C. Perhaps I will have a funeral for ours : ( .

[Steve Jenkins]

It is the original keyboard. I ripped the black keys so they are the same height as the ivory ones then made a form and poured clear epoxy to cover all the keys. I then glued that to the makore panel with four dominoes so it was flush. I topcoated it with a conversion varnish. The shelf was made from the original top.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Several makers on Etsy create cute things with ebony black key-tops. I have had opportunities to have many pianos worth of both ebony and ivory key tops. I sort of wish I had held on to it all (sort of).

[Jim Becker]

It is the original keyboard. I ripped the black keys so they are the same height as the ivory ones then made a form and poured clear epoxy to cover all the keys. I then glued that to the makore panel with four dominoes so it was flush. I topcoated it with a conversion varnish. The shelf was made from the original top.

Interestingly, I did a similar thing with a few subsets of the keys for a friend I cut charcuterie boards for. The board was piano shaped and black and the keys embedded in in clear resin. The boards were made from the poplar sound board of the same piano that donated the keys. Sadly, the blacks were actually molded plastic that was glued to wood for the full height keys, but in order to get them all to the thickness I needed, I had to "resaw" the keycaps off of the wood substrates.

That's a really interesting project. Different than how some folks use an old piano as a wall hung bar, etc.