Grand Piano and Piano Bench

The piano closely follows the length, width, depth, and height scale of actual grand pianos which have a much greater size variation than I anticipated. Even more surprising is the variations in harp shapes. The top lid is hinged and held open with a hinged support and a second shorter support is provided to approximate the lower 35 degree angle use with many concert grand pianos. The keyboard cover hinges and rotates into the base of the piano and the music stand rotates out of the base. The music harp is outlined with technic pieces and the strings are placed in two overlapping levels with the bed of silver strings under the longer yellow strings. I included 6 ½ octaves (about 81 keys) instead of the standard 7+ octaves (88 keys) because there are no Lego bricks that give the matching single black key in the lowest register. My approximation appears to give a pleasing balance to the model and supports a reasonable overall size.

The piano lid is three plates thick and incorporates three 4x4 hinge plates for structural integrity. The bottom of the base uses two levels of plates. The inside of the base is as full as an actual piano. The music stand has a lattice back. The lid support, harp, and internal support for the piano legs are made with technic pieces.

My model contains 676 Lego pieces and is constructed according to Lego “good building” standards. I have not altered any Lego pieces and nothing is glued. About one third of the Lego bricks used are not sold as individual parts at the Lego store and must be purchased in the secondary market. A couple of pieces are quite rare even though I would not consider them outside of the Lego main stream. The accessories (music book, apple, plant, and kitten are purely optional but add a little personality to the project.

The larger piano bench is sized to accept a commercially available music box. The stem is a perfect fit through the hole in a strategically placed technic brick. This is a real pleaser for those that receive this piano as a gift; young and not-so-young alike.

I hope you enjoy this and perhaps there is a musician in your life who would like this model. I would like to see a full set of musical instrument models and believe the scale used here would reasonably support instrumentation for a full orchestra.

cheers,
Jim