Well, the test results are in. Cupcake icing causes hardening of the arteries and action centers. Steel and brass parts are not damaged, but wool becomes sticky. The upright mentioned in my message from March, below, started getting heavy and then stopped moving altogether at each action center subject to the food grease. It acted just like an 80 year old Steinway with verdigris. The grease penetrated the wood and felt. I tried rebushing one flange without lots of cleaning, using the Renner method, and the glue wouldn't even stick to the wood. The bushing popped right out when I tried to burnish it. I cleaned the flanges with Simple Green grease cutter and a tooth brush, rinsed, and dried for a couple days, then rebushed. (Naptha didn't disolve the grease at all.) The damper and hammer springs seem fine, but I scrubbed them too. The felt punchings they press against were sticky and had to go. In the end, about 18 notes were involved in some way. A few were covered heavily, and others only had a few faint spots. Dampers, wips, jacks, and hammers were rebushed if any sign of discoloration was evident. I'll report back if the new bushing cloth shows any signs of re-contamination from residual gunk in the wood. For now, those 18 notes look clean and work like new. Greg -------- Original Message ---------- Sat Mar 28 19:13:16 PDT 2009 Has anyone studied the long term effects of cupcake icing on steel and brass action parts, especially damper springs and center pins? I'm assuming the icing is the standard vegetable shortening and sugar. I found the dry, crusty remains of some sort of baked good with said icing in a school console piano. I'm wondering if all greasy parts need to be washed with naptha, or if the vanilla "lube" with sprinkles is harmless? The surface solids have already been removed. All that remains is some soaked-in grease on about 10 damper flanges and levers. I'm just wondering if the springs will start breaking off and action centers will start freezing up. Maybe I'll leave it as a long-term test specimen. Greg Graham
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