Cleaning metal

[Larry Fisher]

Hi all,

As for John's post about Bush and Lane pianners, ....... OOOPs and OOOOOPs
again eh??

I had the occassion recently to find a way to clean some aggraffes for a
small Wurly grand that I'm presently doing.  As part of a restringing job, I
respray the plate and as part of the prep for this job, I remove the
aggraffes.  Whilst removed, I buff them up so they look like new.  These
particular ones has a coating of mystery material  ......  paint like, only
harder, greenish goldish color, won't scrape off without damaging the
aggraffe, won't buff off (just loads up with compound), I tried soaking in
alcohol, then lacquer thinner, then BATTERY ACID, and nothing touched this
stuff.

A few months back I had the foresight to purchase the plating in miniature
kit from Caswell in Elmira, NY.  In this kit is some stuff called
Electroclean solution.  I heated it up in my crockpot to almost boiling,
immersed the aggraffe clamped to a jiffy clamp, and applied current to it
supplied by my battery charger.  2 minutes later it was free of all attached
nasties and it buffed up nicely.  I did the whole set using two jiffy clamps
and alternating back and forth between clamps.

I would imagine you could clean urine soaked casters the same way with out
harming the plating.  I have no idea what's in the Electroclean solution,
but you could try ordinary dish soap (a short squirt) in about a quart of
water, and perhaps a wee bit of alcohol, and then apply a charge.  I used
the negative on the part, and the positive on a piece of cast iron stock
(don't use brass).  Try it if you can, and let us know how it comes out.

Lar

                                    Larry Fisher RPT
   specialist in players, retrofits, and other complicated stuff
      phone 360-256-2999 or email larryf@pacifier.com
         http://www.pacifier.com/~larryf/ (revised 10/96)
           Beau Dahnker pianos work best under water