Monday, September 3, 2018

Stopping the Squeaks on a Burghardt Scissor-Jack Piano Bench

With a good piano, decent microphones, a [Really] nice preamp, and a not-bad A/D converter, you'd hope that playing ability would be the only thing to prevent a good piano recording in a home studio…  Then you play back to find that the squeaking piano bench is louder than the all but the loudest passages. Judging from the numerous discussion threads on piano-related online forums, I presume it's a common problem.  I discovered a relatively simple solution that might be helpful to others.

My bench is an adjustable Burghardt with a "scissor jack" style lifting mechanism, but my squeak solution should be applicable to some other types of benches.



I searched online for some solutions:

  • "Frequently tightening bolted joints." – Considering the bench came with its own wrench, the manufacturer must have been expecting this approach, but eventually it stops working.  It also only works for squeaks between the legs and apron board.
  • "Ensuring the bench is upright, on a level surface before tightening leg bolts." – I loosened the leg bolts and tried, but there was no difference.
  • "Putting Vaseline (or other lubricants) in wood-to-wood joints between apron and legs." – It seemed like this would be bad for the wood finish.
  • "WD40 at various locations." – Also bad for the wood finish, and not a good long term solution.

As I was reading these aloud, my wife suggested inserting a piece of fabric into the joints, and offered a scrap of nylon. That's when I remembered I had a partial roll of Rockler "Nylo-Tape" from a furniture project.  Nylo-tape is adhesive-backed nylon tape. I had 3/4" wide × 10 mil thick on hand, which worked just right.

First, I removed the legs (keeping track of which goes where!) and applied short pieces of Nylo-tape to the ends of each apron board, where they bear against the legs.

Then I applied long strips of Nylo-tape between the the lifting mechanism and the two wooden frames.  I just cut them a little longer than needed, marked the backing with the position of each hole, and then used a standard handheld office paper punch to make holes for the screws in each strip of tape.  (I actually removed each frame from the mechanism in turn, rather than all at once, to make it easier to put back in the right orientation.)



I did not apply any Nylo-tape between the corner brackets and the apron, partly because the squeaking seemed to stop after the first round of fixes, and partly because I ran out of Nylo-tape.  If new squeaks develop there, I may have to apply some later: