Life and work in the piano factories
Different professions and competences met in the factories. The workers usually had the carpentry profession as a basis of knowledge when they were employed. They learnt the instrument making stages through rotation in the house and finished the education by moving between the factories here at home or being abroad professionally for years before a possible establishment.
The timber used must have been dried for years. When taken into the factory it came to the machine hall in the bottom of the building where everything started. Here, semi-manufactured products were made to all wooden parts that were needed in the fabrication. After that work was spit up in a number of departments. The case makers produced the different parts of the case and veneered them. The cast iron frames were usually ordered from foundries but the finished frames or plates had still to be worked upon. This was done in the metal work and lacquer departments. In the board and soundboard department the backs and soundboards were produced and the cast iron frames mounted. The stringing department delivered over spun bass strings, strung the instruments and made the first tuning work (plucking). When the case assemblers got the finished soundboards, the different parts of the case which were glued around the instrument board, should be finished and polished. After that the instrument proceeded to the action assemblers who built action, pedal actions and keyboard into the instrument. Usually, there was a special department for making keyboards that furnished piano and grand piano as well as reed organ making with keyboards. On the other hand actions were imported. The last step was tuning and intonation and thereafter it was time for the last tuning and official inspection before the instrument reached the factory storerooms and sailing shops.
A slideshow illustrates the process from timber to finished instruments. The photos all show the work at the Östlind & Almquist company in Arvika, partly from the suite of images taken in 1899 to manifest the beginning of a piano and grand piano production, partly from the photo basis of the 1909 catalogue, partly from a series of photos from the 1940s.
Slideshow, piano making:
