String cleaning question

[Geoff Sykes]

I do new piano prep and floor tunings at a local piano store one day a week.
This store has one sort of odd-job employee who does things like basic
unpacking and screwing things together and dusting. He also has the
occasional task of getting inside pianos to do things like remove the hammer
lock board that new grand's are shipped with, (what's the real name for that
thing?), and to do some basic clean up. Yesterday, I found him cleaning
strings on a very decent used Steinway. He had removed the action and was
using some very fine steel wool to polish up the tuning pins, agraffe's,
plain wire strings and the wound bass strings. This activity on the pins,
agraffe's and the plain wire strings didn't bother me so much but I had some
serious doubts as to whether this was a good idea for the wound bass
strings. So, I'm writing today to ask the learned opinions of the wise techs
here, as I was unsure enough about this practice to actually say anything. 
 
-- Geoff Sykes
-- Assoc. Los Angeles
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