A library built to give the craft away
For more than a century, piano technicians have solved extraordinary problems in quiet workshops — and taken most of what they learned with them when they retired. This library exists so that knowledge stays in the trade, free and open, for whoever needs it next.
Where it started
The idea is simple, and it came from a frustration every technician knows. Someone spends three days reverse-engineering a rare flange. Somewhere else, a year later, another technician does the exact same three days of work — because the first solution was never written down or shared. Multiply that across a whole profession and you get thousands of hours reinvented every year, and priceless know-how lost every time a shop closes.
Brigham Larson has spent his career restoring pianos and, more recently, using CAD, CNC machining, and 3D printing to reproduce parts the industry stopped making decades ago. Along the way his shop built up a collection of models, jigs, and hard-won techniques. The obvious thing to do with a collection like that is keep it. He decided to do the opposite: give it away, and invite the rest of the trade to do the same.
The vision
This is meant to be the profession's shared memory — not one shop's catalog. It starts with the Brigham Larson Pianos collection simply because someone had to put the first files on the shelf. The hope is that it quickly stops being his library and becomes ours: a place where a technician in any country can find a model, a fixture, a print setting, or a video that saves them days of work — and where they can leave something behind for the next person in return.
Everything here is offered in that spirit. Downloads are free. Credit always goes to the technician who shared the work. And the long-term goal isn't traffic or recognition — it's a trade where newer technicians spend less time reinventing solved problems and more time advancing the craft itself.
How it grows
Deliberately, and without becoming anyone's second job. The plan is to grow in steps: a public, free-to-browse library first; then a small group of invited contributors; then a wider community as the tools and trust are in place. Quality matters more than volume — a handful of well-documented, genuinely useful parts is worth more than a thousand mystery files.
If you have something worth preserving — a model, a jig, a technique, a lesson learned the hard way — there's a place for it here, with your name on it. That's how a craft looks after its own.
Founder of Brigham Larson Pianos, restoring heirloom instruments and championing digital tools for the whole trade.