hello and ? re weird bright yellow fuzz on pressure bar

[David Nereson]

I've seen that many times also.  I'm sure it's the result of a
chemical reaction with the air or maybe with some polish or
mothproofing that was put on at the factory or who knows what.
Sometimes dissimilar metals cause deposits to form, either from
corrosion or electrolysis, but I'm not a chemist.  I doubt it's
harmful dust, just sitting there, but I wouldn't breathe it in.
    --David Nereson, RPT
  -----Original Message-----
  From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org
[mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org]On Behalf Of holly quigley
  Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 10:22 AM
  To: pianotech at ptg.org
  Subject: hello and ? re weird bright yellow fuzz on pressure
bar



  Hi everyone!

  Been an associate member for a while, I work as a
tuner/technician full-time in GA... just usually too busy to
keep up with the mailing list. Was actually once on here, but
deleted my email account and can't find my old password - d'oh!

  Anyway, I just have a really quick question - I've searched
the archives and even google, and no luck.

  For the second time now in the past month, I have come across
a spinet (two separate ones in the past month), with a layer of
this weird almost neon-yellowish-greenish fuzz/dust coating the
pressure bars. The screws for the pressure bars are completely
clean and untouched - it looks like it has to be either some
weird chemical reaction, a fungus or mold (but on plain metal
like that - ??) or Idunno - was there ever a time when pressure
bars were coated in some kind of faux suede or something that
would break down? It actually looks almost like school-issued
yellow chalk coating them, but it's an even layer over the
entire bar, and as I said, the screws have none of this stuff on
them. I'm a little concerned because when you just barely touch
this stuff the powder just showers right off of it. I didn't
have a mask or gloves at the time, and I hope I don't have to
worry about being exposed to some kind of poisonous chemical
residue resulting from a reaction between the pressure bars and
something in the air. The two pianos appeared to be different
makes - the one today was a Mehler & Sons (I think - I might be
screwing the name up), and the other was a Mendelssohn spinet,
both about 30+ years old.

  Does this sound at all familiar to anyone? In this case, I'd
be more than happy to wind up sounding like a complete newbie
dolt who didn't recognize something completely harmless and
common...

  Thanks in advance!
  -Holly Quigley
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