Greg It all depends on the pianos. On an upright, if the fall board?was closed, then most likely the only thing that needs to be done is for the case to be thoroughly cleaned. If the fall board was open, you will also?have to clean the keys, or maybe get new tops put on. Grand pianos, however are much different.?Smoke probably got inside, even with?the lid?down. Smoke is very caustic, especially on felts and strings. You can clean the strings, but that is not where the problem lies. It's at the pressure points, like the bridge pins,?V-bar, at the tuning pins, etc., where the smoke causes problems. Which means the strings have to be replaced, along with the felts. You will also need to look closely at the action. If you see smoke damage on the hammers, it means all the felts have been "infected" with smoke. Which means all the action parts will need to be replaced. Hope this helps. Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT Piano Tuner/Technician Mililani, Oahu, HI 808-349-2943 Author of: The Business of Piano Tuning available from Potter Press www.pianotuning.com -----Original Message----- From: Geoffrey Arnold <welltemperedtuning at yahoo.com> To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Mon, 4 May 2009 10:59 am Subject: [pianotech] Smoke Damage Appraisal I was recently contracted to inspect five pianos for a church which suffered extensive fire and smoke damage. Because of the major renovations now underway these appraisals will help them decide which pianos to replace or rebuild regardless of smoke damage, but they want to know if there is fire-related damage for insurance purposes. I know little about the affects of smoke. None of these pianos were exposed to extreme elevated temperatures, and most were far from the main exposure to smoke. I gave them my usual inspection and made an itemized appraisal of their component parts, and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. What should I be looking for? Many thanks! Greg Arnold, RPT Walla Walla, WA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090504/253b984e/attachment-0001.html>
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