[CAUT] Critter-damaged balance punchings in Yamaha P-22s

[maxpiano]

Don,

I opened an old Kimball yesterday that had the same problem (YUK!)

If not replacing the felt/cloth, I just vacuum up all I can get of the 
powder.  Not much else one can do as the stuff gets down into the fabric. 
At least the fabric is safe from any repeated infestation.  And the customer 
very rarely gets down into the works of the piano, so poisoning is not a 
foreseeable problem, and it's not like hantavirus that can get through the 
vacuum cleaner bag into the air.

Bill
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don" <pianotuna at accesscomm.ca>
To: "College and University Technicians" <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 3:53 AM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Critter-damaged balance punchings in Yamaha P-22s


> Hi Bill,
>
> How do you safely clean up the mess? Or is it best to let "sleeping
> chemicals alone"?
>
> At 08:26 AM 5/13/2007 -0400, you wrote:
>>Some technicians here in the Carolinas who shall remain unnamed found a
>>PERMANENT solution.  It may be harder than catching a mountain lion to 
>>find
>>the insecticide as its distribution as an insecticide was outlawed in the
>>1960's or '70's.  If you open a piano that has grayish-white powder under
>>the keys, be cautious and do not taste.  It could be arsenate of lead (a
>>once-common garden insecticide) mixed with paris green (also an arsenic
>>compound, added to disguise the other, which was pink).
>>
>>I ran across another piano with this about a month ago.
>>
>>Bill Maxim, RPT