[pianotech] smoke damaged piano.

[Douglas Gregg]

The S&S that I have that was in a fire had dark wippen wood, but all
older Steinways have dark wippens in my experience unless replaced. My
brother-in-law works for Steinway and told me they used to soak all
the wood parts in paraffin oil to prevent moisture from affecting the
wippens, etc. This may have worked OK for moisture but there probably
was some sulfur contamination in the paraffin oil and later there was
a problem of verigris on the centers. At least that is the story I
heard. Anyway, I have not used the scrubbing bubbles on the action. It
would probably be OK if you avoid the leather parts. It has a fairly
strong detergent action and will dry the leather.

 I do use a steam cleaner to clean actions and they clean up very well
with steam. Again, avoid the leather.  I have a hand held McCulloch
steamer. I use it quite a bit for cleaning up pianos. It has high
pressure so it is a little like power washing but without all the
water. I do have to let the action dry out for a couple days before
doing fine regulation work so that it does not change. I steam all the
felt parts and it brings them back to like new condition.  I also use
Ballistol on all the centers before the steam cleaning to help prevent
the felt from taking up too much moisture. I would use the Ballistol
anyway, so before steaming seems better because it will soak in the
dry felt and then resist the water better.

I have not tried it yet, but I am very interested in soda blasting of
action parts. It seems to work very well on auto parts and is very
gentle. It does not erode the wood like other blasting media would. I
have seen (I think in the TT&T of the PTG journal a mention of this)
It should make the wood looks as light as it is going to get.

Perhaps someone else has used soda blasting and can comment on this.

Douglas Gregg
Classic Piano Doc
Southold, NY 11971
www.classicpianodoc.com