The following photos are from a slide show created by Sheldon Smith in 1981, documenting his design and casting of a plate for a 7-foot piano he intended to build.
The slides are an amazingly detailed visual account of Sheldon’s bold effort to cast a plate so he could build a piano himself “from scratch,” at a time when there were hardly any piano technicians even attempting to replace soundboards or pinblocks.
Sheldon was a well-respected technician in the San Francisco area and a longstanding PTG member. Sheldon passed away in 1999.
Larry Lobel acquired the slides for the San Francisco chapter from Sheldon Smith’s wife, Linda McCormick, who was also a piano technician and PTG member. Thanks to Larry for his fine work in digitizing the slides and offering them to the Piano Technicians Guild Foundation.
