[pianotech] Piano rusting at the beach

[Tom Servinsky]

Rob
As someone who lives and works on a beach front community for the past 30 
yrs, I have first hand experience with these issues.
I'm glad that the party involved has agreed on restringing. A couple of 
suggestions for the rust removal from the hardware items.
l. I assume you'll be spraying the plate as well. If that's the case, I 
would use a soft brass wheel in a drill and go town around the hitch and 
bridge pins. The Dremel tool would also work, however you'll go through 
those tiny wire brushes faster than the big boy wheels you can use in a 
drill. Any scratch marks left on the plate can then be easily covered up 
during the spraying of the plate.
2. Even though this piano is going 25 miles from the beach, I would add an 
extra piece of precaution during the restringing phase. We take a couple 
dabs of Vaseline and rub it into a piece of material. We then coat the 
string prior to installation with a simple wiping of the cloth onto the 
string. Of course this is for the plain wire strings only. On the bass 
strings we only do the tails and be careful not to get any on the copper 
windings, as it will discolor.What's left is a very thin coat of Masculine 
that will retard any rust in the future. Don't kid yourself of the 25 mile 
range. Salt travels through the air and makes it way into places you would 
never think possible.
Down here the salt gets into the air conditioning systems and that gets sent 
through the home. So even though the house stays closed up all year round, 
the salt still finds a way of getting into the interior of the home. And 
that's the big problem. Not as much as the humidity being the culprit, but 
the salt.
3. Wool felt string cover is a must.
Tom Servinsky

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rob McCall" <rob at mccallpiano.com>
To: <pmc033 at earthlink.net>; <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 3:39 AM
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Piano rusting at the beach


Thanks Paul...

This piano is in Cardiff by the Sea and it's right across the street from 
the beach.

My client wants to restring it so I'm not too worried about fixing that 
particular part.  I'm most interested in getting it thoroughly cleaned while 
the strings are out and off the tuning pins.  I believe that to be the 
optimum time to fix most of it.  The dremel tool is a great idea.

One of the other reasons for restringing is the fact that every single 
string is tied off at the hitch pin. So there are coils at both ends! I'm 
not really looking forward to tying all those knots, but it's in the 
estimate...  :-)

The good news is that the piano will be moved to Temecula, over 25 miles 
from the beach and a much drier and warmer climate.  It's also getting a DC 
unit to keep it near the same humidity it's accustomed to.

I'll look into the coil/tuning pin cleaning device.  I vaguely remember 
seeing that at one of the supply houses, too.

While I'm thinking of it, what about cleaning out the holes in the agraffes? 
I pulled a couple of strings up to check pin tightness and I heard a good 
"ping" as the corrosion bond broke at the agraffe. Does someone make a steel 
pipe cleaner?  :-)

Regards,

Rob McCall
Murrieta, CA

On Feb 28, 2011, at 17:38 , Paul McCloud wrote:

> Hi, Rob:
> (From  down the road in San Diego...)
> The client should have purchased a string cover, which would have
> prevented the rust on the strings.  What's done is done, but I bet if they
> got one and kept the strings dry, they would stop rusting so much.
> Moisture is going to feed the rust.  I would also put Music Sorb under the
> cover too, which would absorb moisture.  As far as cleaning the strings,
> you aren't going to get it all especially around the tuning pins.  But you
> can make it look better using polita cakes.  These were invented for 
> Polish
> birthdays.  Ok, maybe not.  Around the pins you can use a wire brush
> chucked in a drill.  I think the supply houses used to have some kind of
> coil cleaning device and  compound.  Haven't used it, tho.  I've used a
> Dremel with a wire brush (steel or brass) to clean around the bridge pins
> and other tight places.
> Bass strings will clean with steel wool but don't let it get stuck in the
> windings.  Rub along the string and not across it so that won't happen.
> If they don't have a cover, or keep the salt air out of the piano, you'll
> be restringing it sooner than later.  I've contemplated using Extend on
> rusty strings, which is a spray that turns the rust black, but prevents it
> from returning.  I think Wim had some kind of stuff that he used to keep
> rust from happening inside a piano.  Though I'm not sure it would work on
> an open grand piano.  Check the archives or... Wim, what was that stuff?
> Paul McCloud
> San Diego