Wow! Drop Action Spinet rust on tuning pins removed with WD40- only 900$

[Dave Davis]

Richard,

A tech in our chapter tells about tuning a console once a year for a few years. He showed up one day to do the annual tuning, and the piano sounded awful. He put his lever on a couple of pins, pulled them up, and they'd go slack again. He couldn't believe it was happening, and commented about it. The husband looked kind of sheepish and said his wife had remarked about some light rust on the tuning pins. The husband had carefully wiped them down with WD-40. They laid the piano back, did the CA thing, and the piano is fine, not great, but fine, and still receiving its annual tunings.

So to answer your question... if all else fails, give it a try.

Dave Davis, RPT


----- Original Message ----
From: R Barber <bassooner42 at yahoo.com>
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Sent: Friday, February 9, 2007 6:40:56 PM
Subject: Wow! Drop Action Spinet rust on tuning pins removed with WD40- only 900$


A new customer bought a piano from a guy in our town who is
apparently cleaning up gunky pianos with a WD40 type rust
remover.   Tuning pins were greasy, it looks as though he
sprayed something on there to help him get the rust off.

Customer informs me its this guy who takes old pianos, "fixes"
them, and sells them back into the used market.  Same guy is
apparently teaching piano lessons in his home also, which is
supposedly chock full of these instruments.

This drop-action I tried tuning had glittery green felt glued
to the top under the lid, and glittery red felt woven into the
bass section strings just below the tuning pins.  I tried
driving the pins in further to no avail.

I felt really bad for the customer, and told her tunings won't
last, and see if she could either get a replacement instrument
or money back from this guy.

Im wondering, even though these things are sold as-is, with
that kind of damage, ain't there a law against selling those,
since they will never hold a tune?  If not, there should be!

Also wondering if thin CA glue would rectify the situation,
or have no effect because of the penetrating oil already down
there?

Thanks-
Richard Barber
Morgan Hill, CA
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