Coffee in piano

[Phil Ryan]

Dear List,

A client whose piano I service, spilled a cup of coffee into the action of
the piano.  The action  was cleaned up pretty well, but some of the notes
involved later started to turn into a "thudding" sound.  After ruling out
the hammers as the culprits, I found the problem to be in the agraffes. Some
of the coffee must have stopped up the holes in the agraffes.  Not having
any cleaning materials with me (It's on a cruise ship), I left it for next
time.  Question: Is there a good chemical solvent that will easily disolve
this congestion without doing additional damage?  Is this a common problem
with spills?   It's new to me.

Phil Ryan
Miami Beach