They say there are no stupid questions.

WinstonChurchill · Post by **WinstonChurchill** » 09 Jun 2008, 11:57

They are of course wrong, as I am about to demonstrate. However:

My piano is about to be relocated from a carpeted room into a room with hardwood flooring.

Can anyone suggest a good way to avoid putting dents in the floor once the piano is in situ? I assume that those crappy little cup things you get from the hardware store for putting under the sofa won't be any good, seeing as this is a 520lb piano we're talking about.

Some glenn-gouldian wooden blocks suggest themselves, but I also don't want to raise the piano too far off the floor if I can help it. Surely there's some product out there somewhere for just this purpose?

Thanks!

Brumtuner · Post by **Brumtuner** » 09 Jun 2008, 13:36

This 'hardwood flooring', is it balsa?

mdw · Post by **mdw** » 09 Jun 2008, 13:46

As 3 fat blokes sitting on a sofa will weigh more than that, sofa castor cups will be fine. Get ones with the flat base and a felt pad on the underside. Most diy sheds do them.

Grenache · Post by **Grenache** » 09 Jun 2008, 14:23

There are some avaliable via the Piano Accessories pages on this site, though I haven't tried any.

genaa · Post by **genaa** » 09 Jun 2008, 17:57

failing that you can always use larger tiles of hardwood laminate type material, or combination with some carpet tile etc. cut to whatever size you feel appropriate.

PianoFifty · Post by **PianoFifty** » 10 Jun 2008, 01:28

At 520lbs this must be a small grand. Sofa castor cups WON'T do the job (they will most likely be too small and break).

I use some offcuts of 15mm softwood. Works fine. I have 'hardwood' floors, and without support the piano castors would dent them for sure.

mdw · Post by **mdw** » 10 Jun 2008, 07:45

PianoFifty wrote:At 520lbs this must be a small grand. Sofa castor cups WON'T do the job (they will most likely be too small and break).

I use some offcuts of 15mm softwood. Works fine. I have 'hardwood' floors, and without support the piano castors would dent them for sure.

If its a grand then yes the castors will be too big for sofa cups but if its an upright they will be fine as long as they have the felt base to them. He doesnt say upright or grand.
If it is a grand then make sure the castor sits with its axle running at 90 degrees to the grain of the wood on wooden grand castor cups as ive seen these split.

WinstonChurchill · Post by **WinstonChurchill** » 10 Jun 2008, 10:19

Thanks all.

It is in fact a U3, which apparently weighs 517lbs.

mdw wrote:As 3 fat blokes sitting on a sofa will weigh more than that, sofa castor cups will be fine.

Good point. What I was thinking though was that the surface area on a sofa leg tends to be a fair bit larger than that of a piano castor, so should spread the weight better. I was reading somewhere that the reason you get high-heel marks in hardwood is because someone weighing nine and a half stone in heels that cover a quarter inch would exert about 2000 PSI. I dunno, maybe that's an exaggeration, but I can tell you that my floor has more than a couple of high-heel marks, courtesy of the previous owner. ...But I shall see if I can find cups that look fairly robust.

Thought about the tile/offcut approach too, although I suspose that would take a little more effort on my part! I shall look into it.

Brumtuner wrote:This 'hardwood flooring', is it balsa?

Ha! Tuner by day, comedian by night.

Post by **Barrie Heaton** » 10 Jun 2008, 19:04

WinstonChurchill wrote:Thanks all.

It is in fact a U3, which apparently weighs 517lbs.

The wooded castors cups 45mm come with felt or rubber backing the 70mm come with rubber backing both will take the weigh of a U3 not had any split yet they raise the piano by 10mm depending on cup and castor size

For my clients I tend to use the 70mm on new U3 and they look nice with the shiny brass castors on a wooden floor

Barrie,

Post by **vernon** » 10 Jun 2008, 19:25

cut 4 neat 3" squares from an offcut of the hardwood flooring.
You can insert these( and remove them) by leaning the piano the required way without lifting.
If you are not handy enough, ask the tuner to make them!

Otto · Post by **Otto** » 24 Jun 2008, 11:29

This is a top tip, and is much better than castor cups as it spreads the load over a much greater area. I normally nail or glue a couple of extra pieces of moulding to stop the casters running off the board.

You can use this for any piano on carpets too. I normally use 12mm plywood boards (6" x 6" for a grand piano) and paint it the same colour as the carpet. I suppose you could just cover it with a carpet off-cut instead.

When I moved house, my 7' 2" Bechstein left indents in the carpet which recovered back to normal in about a week.

If the floor is solid oak or beech, you're quite safe not bothering with the castor stuff at all, since the woods are so hard.