I am not sure if it is growing up with very little or spending a great deal of time with my grandparents who lived through the depression that causes me irritation when I see waste. My grandparents were quite frugal as a result of their humble Appalachian upbringing and early life on a farm. Even after they lived comfortably in later years following a lifetime of hard work they always searched for bargains, interesting ways to fix or repurpose things, and they avoided wasting anything. As a child I spent a lot of time with these wonderful people and it might just be that they imprinted me at an early age to despise wastefulness. As a result, I too find it quite difficult to let anything go to waste and often get perturbed when I see people wasting things that could be put to good use.
Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to matter what it is, everything from the extra ketchup on the plate, the used tires that get thrown away, or broken furniture that can be repaired, big or small it bothers me to see things go to waste. I was taught “take all you want but eat all you take” in addition to take care of the things you have and repair them when necessary vice spending your hard earned money on a new one. As a result it seems I am constantly fixing things that break or finding new uses for them. I find it rewarding to put in a little time and effort to bring life and usefulness back to an old piece of furniture, a clock, and particularly musical instruments. However my penchant for making do with what is available often has no bounds. Sometimes it requires looking at broken or undesirable things in new ways or even determining how the parts can be used for something else. Sometimes it just takes a little imagination to develop new uses for what appears to be a broken piece of junk.
Most recently one of the folks I jam with on a weekly basis, Robbie, informed me of a problem that he had. Robbie runs an auction house and he had an upright piano that had been sold three times at auction, yet the purchasers never returned to pick up the piano. He had recently bumped into the most recent purchaser, Jimmy, and asked if he was going to get the piano out of the warehouse since it had been six months and it was taking up needed floor space. Jimmy responded, “No I don’t think I want it anymore; sell it again or just get rid of it”. Robbie was quite frustrated having sold the piano three times and commented at a jam that he was just going to burn the piano and scrap the metal parts that were left over. I told Robbie if he could give me a few days I would get the piano out of his warehouse for him. Robbie replied, “It has been in the warehouse now for two years, a few more days won’t hurt”.
A couple of days later I drove an hour to get to Robbie’s warehouse and laid eyes on the ugliest green decoupage piano I had ever seen. It was amazing to me that anyone would have covered the beautiful rosewood veneer that was visible on the inside of the piano with a puke green and white streaked paste (but of course I rather enjoy the natural look of wood personally). However, I was not there to pick up a piano; rather I was there to repurpose the piano parts into something else. At the time I was only interested in the sound board and figured I would find a use for everything else at some point. The sound board was the source for aged spruce that I planned on repurposing in the construction of new instruments. What better way to keep an old piano going than to extend its musical life in several new instruments.
So I began disassembling the piano with the bucket of tools I carried. First it was the auction house workers that started informing me the best way was to just take a saw to it. As time passed, I got to hear all of the advice of those who were showing up for the auction. Some of it was interesting commentary but none of the advice helped achieve the objective of salvaging as much of the piano as possible. Time passed and old rusty screws, bolts, and glue hardened over the years made the task more difficult as more evening auction patrons arrived. I finally told Robbie I would be back to finish as the commentary became more than I cared to tolerate. I returned a couple of days later and made some more progress, but it ended much like the first day. However, on the third day I finally had the piano disassembled to the point that all it parts were accessible and the sound board was intact. Interestingly on the third day I heard from two of the previous purchasers of the piano and the original owner all of whom had arrived early for that night’s auction. It was somewhat rewarding to get the history from the original owner and to hear the woes of the purchasers who failed to pick up the piano. Seeing the piano in pieces all were initially in shock, but were happy when they heard I planned on making instruments out of the sound board and reusing the other wood for some unknown future project.
As I was loading the pieces into the truck Robbie asked what I planned on doing with the cast iron portion that was mounted to the sound board because he thought that it would make an interesting gate for his garden. I told him that if he wanted to use it for a gate that he was welcome to it. The following week while at the feed store I overheard the owner mention that they needed some wood to build some benches and a table. I told them that I had just disassembled a piano for the sound board, but all of the other pieces would make a sturdy bench and table that would look quite nice if they took the time to strip the decoupage off of the rosewood veneer. The next day I traded all of the other wood for six 50 pound bags of pig feed. Finally, another local luthier had contacted me about doing some mill work for him. I told him about the sound board and he said he was getting ready to place an order for some spruce, but would rather use the piano sound board if I would be willing to sell it to him.
Today that old piano is a gate to a garden, a bench and table set, and the sound board is being fashioned into a couple of small body guitars and ukuleles. Just think if all that went to waste in a fire for no other reason than to scrap the metal pieces that remained. I hate waste of all types, but giving a voice, and in this case several voices, back to an old instrument is particularly pleasing. If I could only get the folks who end up with the new instruments to sit on that bench in front of the garden and play a few tunes I could invite the original owner and Robbie to come hear that old piano sing once again.
