Repurposing Old Piano Parts

So this may be the first of MANY posts regarding a pretty repurposing project I have been working on! Okay, so its not a piano, its an antique organ, but you really don't see anyone with or interest in organs these days! Which is part of why this project began in the first place....

Long story short (I will write more about in a different post) we had an antique organ we were trying to sell, and no one was interested, so I decided to take it apart and repurpose it into something more functional! But I didn't want to get rid of all the parts I took off, so slowly but surely I've been using all the little parts to make knick knacks and gifts here and there. So for Christmas this year I made various family members these key racks!

Two of the key racks have shelves that were actually attached to the organ! And they all have some pretty old sheet music that went with the organ as well. But I'll go more into that once I get to that step of the process! First.... the cutting of the keys!

Before actually cutting the keys, I had to remove all the little bits of hardware from them, which was not easy.... those things were seriously screwed in there! But after those were removed, I needed to cut the keys to a much shorter length and so that they could sit flat on the boards. These weren't nice ivory keys, they were plastic and broke kind of easily so I had to be pretty careful with this part!

I used a miter saw and it worked pretty well! I wanted to make sure I was cutting each key to be the same length, so I used some extra scrap wood and clamped it into place after getting the key to the spot I wanted it so that I could easily line each key exactly where I needed to cut it each time without measuring each individual one! I did have to do separate placements for the white keys vs. the black keys though just because of how they rest together.

And you may also notice that my dog is in the background of most of my pictures! He refused to be left out of all the fun! (He will actually howl and cry the entire time if I leave him in the house while I'm working on projects...)

After I got all the keys cut to the length I wanted them, I cut the boards next!

After cutting the back boards, I also had to cut smaller pieces that I was going to use as little ledges to add on (which would also have sheet music on them) so I made those cuts as well! After I had everything cut, then came the sanding!

I started at 80 grit sandpaper and worked my way up to 1000. Since I would be using wood stain for some of them I wanted to make sure I got the wood nice and smooth. After sanding and wiping off the wood, it was time for the staining or painting process! Some of key racks I primed and painted, so the first step for those was a couple coats of primer. But for this particular one, I used wood stain!

These were my three options of wood stain, and I had a piece of wood I had already done sample stains on so that could see how each one actually looked on the wood after it dried! For the key rack I was making at the time, I went with the darker stain because it was a closer match to the other furniture in the house where it would be.

For the smaller piece of wood that would be used as a ledge with sheet music attached, I primed that because I would be attaching the sheet music with mod-podge, and that seems to work best on a primed surface!

Those had to dry for a while, so then I worked on the sheet music and mod-podge part!

Let me just say.... mod-podge is a pain and has never worked for me until this project..... but I was very worried about this part going in to it because no matter how many tutorials on how to use mod-podge I watched in the past, something ALWAYS went wrong! But the past is the past, my relationship seems to be getting better with the fickle sealant so I will try and be nice to it from here on out.

I did each key rack a little different with the sheet music part and how I attached it. For one of them, I did the typical way you read about mod-podge... as more of a transfer method that you peel off and the image is left behind on the surface. That way does leave it looking backwards and doesn't come out as a clear image, but that worked just fine for antique sheet music! On another key rack, I tried sealing sheet music on with UV Resin, which worked but also had an interesting look and texture to it, which was totally fine for the look I was going for. The last way I did the sheet music was sealing the entire sheet music piece onto the piece of wood with the mod-podge and leaving it there and not peeling it off. Each had a different look, but I did like the last method the best. For all the different ways of attaching, I still first coated the paper in mod-podge and let that dry just to make sure it was water-proof and wouldn't peel up eventually.

We had a bunch of these really old music books that went along with the organ, so I picked some of the more intricate looking pages and cut some of the sheet music to the sizes I needed! Then I just used a paint brush to coat all of the paper in the mod-podge, let it dry a bit, and flipped it over and did the same to the other side!

You definitely want to be generous with the amount of mod-podge, better to have a little extra on there than not enough! And it does dry clear!

Next up, getting the keys glued together!

I used wood glue and not only glued the keys to each other, but also glued them to some thick black construction paper behind them. After researching and seeing how other people glued old piano keys together, this seemed to be what worked, so that's what I went with and it has worked well each time! After the glue dried and the keys were tightly stuck together, I cut off all excess paper and what was left on the back of the keys made it easier to attach them on to the board.

Once the sheet music was all the way dry, it was time to get it sealed on to the wood! Again, lots of mod-podge! I did a layer on the wood itself before putting the music on top, and then another layer of mod-podge on top of the sheet music to seal it on to the wood.

And then.... waiting for another thing to dry!

I used different kinds of letters for each of the key racks I made, but they all at least had to be painted! These are just wooden letters I had previously gotten from Hobby Lobby! And I used some black metallic paint on them. And then of course had to wait for them to dry.... I am getting all antsy and impatient just remembering all the waiting for things to dry for this project! Once all the separate parts dried I was able to put it all together, add on some hooks, and have a pretty cool end result!