[pianotech] Cleaning Very Old Plate

[richarducci at comcast.net]

Auto pinstriper

Rick Ucci
Uccipiano.com

On May 22, 2012, at 9:03 AM, dmporritt at gmail.com wrote:

> A university art department? A promising student might love the income possibility. 
> 
> dave
> Sent from my BlackBerry®
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Terry Farrell <mfarrel2 at tampabay.rr.com>
> Sender: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org
> Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 08:57:45 
> To: <pianotech at ptg.org>
> Reply-To: pianotech at ptg.org
> Subject: [pianotech] Cleaning Very Old Plate
> 
> I'm restringing an 1867 S&S Square grand. I'm pulling the plate and with to clean it as well as possible. However, at this time I have no plans to refinish the plate - it is to stay original. The original finish is in some sort of condition approaching good (considering its age - shall we say "well developed patina"). I would like to refinish it, but it has quite a bit of two-tone areas and a lot of pinstriping - something that I'd never be able to reproduce - though, I suppose for anyone with some art talent, it would be a piece of cake.
> 
> So maybe two things. If left original, how best to remove as much old gook as possible WITHOUT degrading the finish any more than it is. And second, where to I start looking for an artist who could reproduce the original paint scheme?
> 
> Thanks for any thoughts.
> 
> Terry Farrell