Smoke damage

[Ron Torrella]

One of the faculty, here, recently had a fire in the kitchen - a
teflon-coated pan that burned for hours while he was giving a recital. The
result of all of that thick, black, stinky smoke was that the entire house
stunk (they had the walls washed - didn't get rid of the odor, so now
their walls will be sealed using some special method) and their 1920s
Steinway A stinks, too. (I'm referring to odor....)

A rebuilder, hired by the insurance company, commented (in part):

"I can see no effect of the so called kitchen mishap on the condition of
the piano, all repairs have been necessary to make long before the time of
the mishap and a mere wash down on outside surfaces would be all that is
needed. All surfaces are hard surfaces except for felts, which are damaged
by other causes and worn out. There is no odor evident and residue
includes mostly, if not all, pre-existing build up of other household
contaminates." [sic]

I agree with the rebuilder that the piano was in need of rebuilding before
the pan burned up (what he refers to as "the so called kitchen mishap"),
but having seen the instrument myself, I found the odor to be *quite*
strong (that smoke odor is hard to miss -- but then, I'm not a smoker, so
my olfactory senses are fairly acute).

What perplexes me is this "wash down" concept and the idea that wood is a
"hard surface." Granted, the lacquered portions are hard, but the
soundboard (which has the original shellac finish), all of the action
parts, keysticks, keyframe and bed, beams, etc. - anything that doesn't
have a lacquer finish - surely could be considered a "hard surface!" Am I
off base? How does one "wash down" a piano without using liquids? I can't
imagine that the minimal amount of water/cleaner solution we use to clean
soundboards is going to be equally effective on every other wood surface.
I wonder what this rebuilder considers "outside surfaces" to be and which
ones he would suggest should be "washed" and which ones shouldn't. All of
the wippens have outside surfaces - would those surfaces *not* be washed
down? What about damper heads? Underlevers and underlever tray? Wash down
keysticks?

Can someone shed some light on this stuff? Suddenly, I feel ignorant.

Ron Torrella, RPT
Piano Technician		"And like that...he's gone."
University of Michigan		     - Roger "Verbal" Kint (Kevin Spacey) 
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