Sawzall for cast iron?

Ed It should work great! I cut up a couple of old refigerators and such with mine and no problems. Use a bimetal blade with fairly coarse teeth ... the hacksaw type are too slow :)

Piece 'o cake...

A bimetal blade (or two) should do the job easily. Don't forget to release the tension on the strings first -:)

I've cut 4" cast iron sewer drain with mine and it worked pretty well.

-- Fred

Ed Huntress wrote: (clip) I have to cut up a piano frame, which means cutting through four webs of iron, a little over 1 in. square each.(clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If you merely need to break it up into pieces you can handle, might I suggest a sledge hammer?

Should work fine with a relatively coarse bimetal blade. Why not just break it with a hammer? Cast iron often seems to break quite easily when I don't want it to.

Even if it were outside, you would have a difficult time cutting cast iron with a cutting torch.

Mill

A large hammer works great.....I had to remove an old bathtub...busted it real easy and carried out the pieces...

At the risk of insulting your knowledge, if you happen to be anticipating "deconstructing" a piano, make damn sure you "let down" all the strings first. Some pretty nasty accidents have happened to people who didn't do that and them began unbolting major parts.

Consider how much total energy is contained in all those stretched pieces of music wire.

Happy Holidays,

Jeff (Who used to hobby rebuilding player pianos and other automatic musical instruments.)

Yeah, I just want to echo Jeff Wisnia here and remind you to be sure to loosen all the strings first. I'm sure you know that but here's a story:

Some years ago I was grouse hunting with a friend when we ran across a dry-rotted, abandoned piano in the woods, near a falling-down and abandoned house. Sez I: "Hey check THIS out" and let fly with pappy's

Several things happened at once.

A. The piano literally exploded, sending pieces rocketing everywhere.

B. In doing so, it made an indescribable noise, something that surely could find use in some sort of postmodern symphonic piece. (My buddy who was with me was/is a viola player who subsequently went to Juillard, although not as a result of this episode : )

C. I ended up with shards of wood literally stuck in my clothes, luckily not in my eyes or anything. After the pieces stopped raining down, my bud said "Hey don't ever do that again, OK?" I concurred that the next time I found a piano and had a shotgun I wouldn't combine the two.

It really was one of those "Use enough dynamite there Butch?" moments.

Lived, learned, and luckily no one got hurt. It really did sound amazing though.

Ed Peterson

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise indicated, this correspondence is a personal opinion and not an official statement of Aero Design and Mfg. Co. Inc.

Wimp!

My son and I recently moved one of those ancient iron bathtubs with claw feet out of the house the same way it went in 75 years ago, with good, old fashioned, *MUSCLE*. :-)

A Sawzall is the perfect tool for the job. I used mine to cut the end fitting off a cast iron sewer pipe and it was a piece of cake. Even my wife was impressed. :-)

Just be sure to use a blade pitch that will keep at least two (preferably three) teeth in the cut at all times. A finer pitch will take longer, but coarser will wear the blade faster.

Alan

Sounds kinda boring.......

Suggest perhaps you should consider disposing of it like this :

If you look closely at the last picture, you might see the 16 gauge shotgun crushed beneath the piano.

Yup.........

Gets me to wondering if Gunner might know of any studies showing the estimated annual number "defensive piano uses".........

John C. Anecdotal also recommends "letting down" the strings evenly across the whole 88. John seems to recall bad things happening if you e.g. loose all the low strings whilst the high are still in tune. ;-)

-- Mark

Good advice but I'd take some sort of grinder and grind through the scale at the starting point of the cut to prolong blade life. Cast iron scale is hard and may contain sand from the mold. Engineman1

That's a great story. I wish I would have known that when a friend begged me to take his piano away years ago. Send it to those myth guys , let's see some footage !

BTW, I saw one of those shows and they said soda cans can't blow up from the heat of the sun in a car. They blow up in the back of my pick up with almost white carpet on the bottom of the bed. It could be cause they get damaged , but I don't know. I've found them empty with the crimped tops pushed out backwards. Also pissing out 10' or their spiraled remains away from the truck.

Up right or other , where did you shoot it? Doesn't matter to me cause shooting in the valley is very risky now days. Will bring a new meaning when running into a free piano now though.

The second picture is the best. If I was there I'd probably miss the landing cause I'd be too busy ROGLMAO with tears in my eyes. I wonder what a piano in flight sounds like.