[pianotech] Smoke Damage Appraisal

[Diane Hofstetter]

Greg,
 
I am in the process of cleaning the  most severely smoke damaged piano that I have ever had to work on.  It is a Yamaha GH1.  The piano body and case have been thoroughly cleaned by one of the shop guys and have been  sitting in a room with an ozone generator for two weeks now, but still smell of smoke. I think it may be because there is smoke residue all over the floor from the cleaning process.  Tomorrow we are going to work on it together.
 
The boss doesn't want to restring the piano.  It will be the first smoke-damaged piano that I haven't restrung.  It will be interesting to see when I try to tune it, 1. whether strings will break and 2. How it sounds.  The boss may have no choice.
 
Meanwhile I have bead blasted the action and keys and have shaped the hammers.  I have used TSP on the keyframe, and have set the action outside in the sunlight and fresh air for about 5 hours total (two times).  The action smells just great now without changing any of the parts.
 
Be sure when you give the church an estimate to plan on at least double your usual cleaning charge.
 
Diane
 
 
[pianotech] Smoke Damage Appraisalwimblees at aol.com wimblees at aol.com 



GregIt all depends on the pianos. On an upright, if the fall board?was closed, then most likely the only thing that needs to be done is for the case to be thoroughly cleaned. If the fall board was open, you will also?have to clean the keys, or maybe get new tops put on. Grand pianos, however are much different.?Smoke probably got inside, even with?the lid?down. Smoke is very caustic, especially on felts and strings. You can clean the strings, but that is not where the problem lies. It's at the pressure points, like the bridge pins,?V-bar, at the tuning pins, etc., where the smoke causes problems. Which means the strings have to be replaced, along with the felts. You will also need to look closely at the action. If you see smoke damage on the hammers, it means all the felts have been "infected" with smoke. Which means all the action parts will need to be replaced. Hope this helps. Willem (Wim) Blees, RPTPiano Tuner/TechnicianMililani, Oahu, HI808-349-2943Author of: The Business of Piano Tuningavailable from Potter Presswww.pianotuning.comDiane Hofstetter