Q&A for How to Dismantle a Piano

There is a special tool you can buy online, but it essentially a wrench with a socket, and will take forever to remove all the pins. There is no metric or English socket that will fit, but the 1/4 inch drive female end of a socket fits perfectly. Take the smallest you have - 9/32 or 7 mm - and flip it and insert it in an electric drill. The pins should come out very easily.

While the tuning pins are not actually attached to the cast-iron plate ("harp"), they do pass through the plate. With a grand piano, the plate can be pulled straight up after removing the lid, and can slide up and off of the pins still in the pin block. An upright piano, spinet through upright grand sizes, cannot be slid off of the tuning pins as the keybed limits movement in that direction. If the keybed is fully removed then it may work, but at that point it would have just been easier to build a piano mock-up from plywood and lumber.

For antique square grands, lift the band of wood just on the front side of the keys. It will slide vertically. Once removed, the key assembly can be slid out intact.

Unfortunately, that is not feasible. You would end up removing the plate then building a structure and re-stringing the apparatus to create the "look" of an intact strung piano. The tuning pins are not connected to the plate ("harp"). You would need to remove the wooden pin block, which is glued to the piano structure, then reattach it to the removed plate. Additionally, the strings bend through pins in wooden bridges that are attached to the wooden sound board. Removal of the strings from the bridges would leave slack in the strings that would let them fall off of the hitch pins, which are the only attachment points of the string that is directly attached to the plate.

The wood and the top of a baby grand piano can be reused or recycled.

Dismantling a piano is difficult and you won't be able to use it once you take it apart. Use a screwdriver to unscrew the cover and the top lid so you can take off the outer pieces and reach the inner parts. Loosen the strings and the key bed so you can pull out the harp and any other internal pieces you can remove. Once the inside is empty, use your screwdriver to take off the sides and legs.

The metal piano wire that's used for the piano strings is made from tempered high-carbon steel. It's a specialized type of wire, also known as spring steel, that is durable and able to hold the tension for years and years, which is what allows a piano to stay tuned.

Pianos can be very heavy, so the biggest risk involved with taking one apart is having something fall on you. The harp on the inside as well as the top cover and the body of the piano could seriously injure you if they fall on you. Be very careful and have somebody help you stabilize the piano when you're taking it apart.

If it is an upright piano, they are probably attached at the top by screws to the wooden plate under the keys. So, yes, they are removable, if you don't mind first removing the keys.