Ric, After reading several different opinions I thought that I would throw in my two cents worth. I would replace the strings. They may look fine now but the long term affects if what is in the fire extinguisher will hurt the strings. Also, I would check to see how much, if any got into the action. You are looking at potential problems with the center pins in the future. I am a volunteer firefighter and know that a lot of what is in fire extinguishers have a lot of long term affects on metals. Wear a mask when you work on the piano. A paper one will be good enough. the residue from the extinguisher is not something you would want in your lungs. Hope things go well for you. God bless Bill Balmer,RPT Ohio Northern University and the University of Findlay In a message dated 05/12/10 09:01:03 US Eastern Standard Time, dmckech at ithaca.edu writes: Ric, Several years ago we had a vandal break into one of our faculty studios and a fire extinguisher was discharged in the room. The two Steinway B's got a good bit of it. The newer one got a bit more than the older. This past semester I had to replace the strings on the newer piano as the strings started breaking a good bit. The powder is very corrosive. It is also very fine and hard to cleanup completely. I could see the rust develop much more than it should have and eventually the strings started to break. Anyone who cleans up the mess must wear proper protective gear as the powder is caustic and can cause respiratory problems. Regards, Don Donald McKechnie Piano Technician Ithaca College dmckech at ithaca.edu 607.274.3908 = -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100513/c0dc6620/attachment.htm>
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