The restoration of a 1840s French Bord piano gained interest from the Eastern Courier Messenger this week!
Patience the key to piano restoration
JOE Leaver says restoring a 160 years old piano has been the greatest challenge of his 20-year career.
Picture: TAIT SCHMAAL Joe Leaver with the 1840s French Bord piano he is helping to restore.
Mr Leaver, who owns Norwood’s Mobile Piano Service, has brought the 1840s French Bord piano back to its former glory.
The piano came to Australia in the late 1800s.
Although Mr Leaver does not have the exact details of the original owners, he says the piano was later given as a gift to their cleaning lady, Edith, who passed it on to her granddaughter, Frances, when she died. “Frances lives in Sydney and she contacted me and asked me if I could restore the piano,” Mr Leaver says.
“It is the oldest piano we have ever worked on and was hand made in France with hand tools.
“It was probably the most difficult restoration because we had never restored a piano that old and we had to make a lot of the parts because you can’t buy them anymore.”
The piano took about 200 hours to restore.
It will be returned to the owner next week.