Now that spring has sprung, I'm dedicating more time in the shop to get this piano done.  Once I removed the plate, I spent some time working on some of the major chips and scrapes in the cabinet.  I also cleaned and sanded the plate.  Gave it a nice new gold coat and a satin finish.  I usually use a gloss finish on the plates because it makes it seem more clean.  But this G2 had an orginal matte finish on the plate, so I wanted to stay with that.  

Piano teardown has continued this week and I was able to complete a few things:
Taking the action/keys apart, the keys were ceased to the balance rail pins.  Those will need to be replaced.  There is too much corrosion to use them.  Oh well.  That's another thing I'll have to replace.  A few of the balance holes were damaged, but nothing significant.
I started working on the finish.  It's a lacquer rubbed satin.  But with plenty of dings and chips.  This will probably be the most time consuming and expensive part to piano to fix.  I gave it a light rubbing to see how it would respond to different grits.  It's looking like an 800 grit pad will make it look nice.  Just need to fix all the chips and bumps.  

I removed the strings and started with the plate removal.  I noticed a couple things.  The string sized were all over the place, completely random.  There are no manufacturing markings for the gauges. So this piano had frankenstein strings up and down the scale, which contributed to the awful voicing & continued string breakage. I called Yamaha to get the proper string scale, and the tech dept emailed me the building specs.  Unfortunately, they are in the Japanese scaling, so I need to convert them to US sizing.  
Also, once I removed the plate, the pinblock looks very solid.  I had expected to find some leak-thru from a spill that happened on the tuning pins.  But, everything looks good and I'm glad to see I won't need to replace the pinblock.  I measured the torque before I pulled everything and it was within reason.  
There is a very small compression ridge that formed under the plate on the soundboard.  I haven't decided what to do about it.  I might dry the piano out a bit more and see if it's opens up then fill the gap.  From underneath it looks fine, which is why I didn't see it until after I pulled the plate.  ​

I decided to blog about this because its going into my house as a personal family piano.  I got it out of a University music school, so it's pretty beat up.  The action parts are completely worn; hammers, bushings, knuckles, etc.  The cabinet has chunks of ebony missing, and the inside is covered in what looks like blasting sand.  Who knows what these kids did with it.  
Hopefully I'll post pictures of the progess and show some of the more interesting parts.

I've been given a Brambach Grand piano action to replace some parts in.  The piano has been rebuild, and refinished, but the action still plays very heavy and loud.  What makes this piano action alittle different is that it uses a patented action wippen and square knuckle designed by Brambach during the early/mid 20th century.  
First thing you'll notice is the full-width jack pushing up against the square knuckle that is apart of the hammer body.  This action still has the double entrapment like modern piano actions, but the geometry is abit different.  These parts are no longer made, so in order to update this action, I'll have to replace everything with modern era parts.  That's gonna change the actino geometry abit, but it shouldn't be a problem.  I'll continue to post more pictures and my progress as things move along.

Notice the Drop button under the hammer rail.  There is a Drop spoon that goes thru the jack (small window) and is attached to the rep lever.  Since all modern parts have a drop pad on top of the rep lever and the drop screw is apart of the hammer flange, this hammer rail will need to be modified or made new.

Adding a new set of hammers to an older piano will give a nicer sound and a longer life.  If your piano sounds "harsh" or "too bright", that could mean the hammers need to be voiced or reshaped.  If the hammers still feel hard, it might be time to replace them.
New hammers will give the piano a warm, more pleasant sound.  Along with giving you a new motivation to play alittle more.