rusted piano strings

[Farrell]

I service three pianos in the Tampa area that have SEVERE rust on the 
strings. Two pianos are in the 20 year old range (Samick and Kawai grands) 
and one is an old Baldwin R - restrung about 8 years ago. The two Asian 
pianos are right next to windows that are open most all the time. The 
strings on these two pianos are so rusty that you'd tear your finger apart 
if you slid your finger along the string. The Baldwin is not as bad, but I 
can easily see that each year it gets more and more rusty - that piano is 
located in a 120 year old home with no heat or AC - windows are open a fair 
bit. An old Sorry & Clunk grand sits next to the Baldwin with severely 
rusted strings - I told her that I would not tune that piano.

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Nossaman" <rnossaman at cox.net>
To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 4:33 PM
Subject: Re: rusted piano strings


>
>> I'll buy what you say Ron. Some of that did occur to me, but I felt that 
>> the strings would warm fairly quickly and that any short period of time 
>> where a small amount of moisture might be on the strings would not be 
>> significant. Perhaps doing that twice a week (don't forget Wednesday 
>> evening), 52 weeks per year, over some number of years is enough to 
>> become significant.
>>
>> Terry Farrell
>
> That's the closest I've come to making sense of the rusty string thing. 
> I've seen pianos sit in fairly high humidity but steady environments and 
> not rust strings, and pianos going through fairly wide but slow swings 
> with similar result. Abrupt changes in temperature and RH% seem to be a 
> big factor. Beyond that, ??????
>
> Ron N
>