Ukiah Music Center -- Piano Restoration

Spencer Brewer's passion and life long trade of 30 years is restoring, buying, selling, tuning, repairing, refinishing and doing virtually anything with the piano. In any given year he works on around 500 pianos and is a member of the Piano Technicians Guild. He has worked on pianos for pianists like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Gaby Casadesus, Lyle Mays, Dick Hyman, Oscar Peterson and countless others. He specialized for years on player pianos and instruments from the 19th century.

He now runs a full scale rebuilding and service shop that sees around 100 pianos yearly. In the same building structure as the Ukiah Music Center, Mendocino Piano specializes in refinishing, reguilding, restringing, action regulating, voicing, and a plethora of other new and and old restorative techniques. He and his staff have a passion for bringing old world pianos back to their original splendor while trying to incorporate new and developing rebuilding techniques to each instrument they work on.

Please call 707-462-8863 to have your piano appraised for repairs, restoration quotes or general information about your piano.

Check out some of the projects that have come through the shop over the years on the other side of this page.

2006 Ukiah Daily Journal Article

In 2006 the Ukiah Daily Journal chronicled Spencer and Ukiah Music Center piano restoration team as they restored a piano that was virtually in disrepair. Click on the image to the right to view a PDF of the article. If you can't read the file, download a PDF reader here:

Restoration Profile - 1882 7' Chickering

We redid the structural case parts, refinished it, strung it, new hammers, redid all the brass, new pinblock, redid the soundboard. One of the most extensive rebuilds we have ever done.

Restoration Profile - 1950 Bosendorfer

We redid the cabinet, the hammers, strings, regulated the action, reguilded the plate, refinished the soundboard, using Bosendorfer parts.

Restoration Profile - 1911 Kimball Concert Grand

-Refinished satin ebony cabinet -Reguilded plate -Refinished soundboard -New strings, pins, dampers, -hammers, and keys -All brass replated -Immaculate restoration!

Restoration Profile - 1924 Steinway Duo-Art Grand

The Steinway Duo-Art was the Rolls-Royce of reproducing player pianos and was literally the finest piano made in it's era. Original cost in 1924 was $6500, without the rolls. This one is completely restored and took over a year to complete. It was previously owned by one family and passed into my care for restoration. It has a pristine original ivory keyboard- no one in the family played, so the keyboard is like new. We have never seen one in this condition from this era.

Click on the picture for more information

Restoration Profile - 1890 Decker & Bros Grand

This Decker & Bros piano presented us with some of most interesting problems we've ever experienced resotring a piano. Beyond evenly refinishing the piano (which was no easy task with 5 different kinds of veneer underneath), the assembly of this piano was one of a kind and difficult to work with. Many parts and adjustments had to be improvised with modern tools since most of the design features have become obsolete over the past 120 years. Click on the picture for more information

Restoration Profile - 1917 Steinway Pianola

One of the rare features of this particular Pianola is that the entire cabinet was made with fire-grain mahogany wood, which is virtually extinct today. Refinished it is quite beautiful. This Steinway also is a Themodist player which means that it incorporates the sustain pedal & soft pedal features while also offering the player the ability to manually use the 'soft or piano' functions. The original pump bellows were still intact which is rare for most players of this era because they were gutted during the 50's & 60's. Click on the picture for more information

Restoration Profile - 1877 H.F. Miller Square Grand

This H.F. Miller is the same piano that was featured in the Ukiah Daily Journal article at the top of this page. It had most of it's action, dampers and felt eaten away by mice as it was in a barn for over 50 years. We hand carved many cabinet and leg parts and remade the entire damper assembly as well as most of the hammer assembly. Click on the picture for more information

Restoration Profile - 1896 Sohner Cabinet Grand

This is a fantastic period piece that we had the opportunityh to restore. A few things that we did to get it into its original condition were: - Refinished burl walnut cabinet -Restrung entire piano -Regulated action -Added new dampers, hammers, keytops, and bridal straps -All brass replated -Overall an immaculate restoration!