[pianotech] Cleaning Very Old Plate

[Douglas Gregg]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Douglas Gregg <classicdoc at gmail.com>
To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org>
Cc:
Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 11:18:16 -0400
Subject: Cleaning Very Old Plate
Subject: Cleaning Very Old Plate
From: Douglas Gregg <classicpianodoc at gmail.com>
To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org>
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=20cf303b41192b995c04c0a130e2

Terry,
As I recommended last week and several times before, use Dow Scrubbing
Bubbles bathroom cleaner in the green aerosol can. I can't tell you
how well this works. You have to see it.  I had an old Chickering
grand that was given to me. I did not even want to take it. Finally,
they paid me to take it away. I was planning on taking it directly to
the dump. It had cat vomit, mouse droppings, a layer of cat fur like
felt on the soundboard. A cat had lived it it. I used to do
postmortems on animals dead in the sun for a day or two. I have a high
tolerance but this grossed me out, but I decided to give it a try just
for scientific purposes.  I didn't know it had a soundboard decal
until I cleaned it.

I left the piano on the skid. I first used a parts cleaning brush from
NAPA (a stiff nylon round brush) with a Metro vacuum to clean the
heavy stuff out. The stiff nylon bristles go through the strings and
disturb the dirt and the vacuum sucks it up. I wore a good 3M dust
mask too. When I could not get any more heavy stuff out, I used a
soundboard wand with a microfiber sock to get some more stuff off. I
found the decal but could barely read it. I did the same treatment for
the plate that also had a Chickering decal. Then I put some old towels
at the bottom inside the rim to catch the run off. I sprayed the plate
and soundboard with scrubbing bubbles, including the strings. After a
minute or less, the rest of the dirt floated up in the bubbles. I blew
the bubbles and dirt down to the towels with the Metro vac on blower
mode. . For the tuning pin area, I used the brush again with the
scrubbing bubbles to get the last of the dirt out. The towels were
brown when I was done. The plate looked nearly new and the soundboard
too. Just look at the pictures.

Doug Gregg
Classic Piano Doc


Message: 5
Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 08:57:45 -0400
From: Terry Farrell <mfarrel2 at tampabay.rr.com>
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: [pianotech] Cleaning Very Old Plate
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