[pianotech] Piano rusting at the beach

[tnrwim at aol.com]

Rob

I have a lot of that here in Hawaii. I have two customers with less than two years old grands who live within 50 years of the ocean, that have corroded strings, pins, etc. 

On other pianos with corroded pedals, etc, the only way to get the corrosion off is to sand it off with 80 grit sandpaper. But when you do, it takes off the lacquer, and they rust again. Nothing short of re-plating them will get them to look like new again. I presume the same thing is going to happen with all the other hardware, including tuning pins, bridge pins, etc. 


Wim


-----Original Message-----
From: Rob McCall <rob at mccallpiano.com>
To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 10:39 am
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Piano rusting at the beach


I forgot to sign it... I don't want to be aNoN... :-)
Rob McCall
McCall Piano Service, LLC
ww.mccallpiano.com
urrieta, CA
51-698-1875
On Feb 28, 2011, at 12:22 , Rob McCall wrote:
> Greetings List,
 
 I went down to a town north of San Diego over the weekend to evaluate a 2004 
ohler & Campbell KGC650 for possible purchase by a client of mine. The home is 
iterally across the street from the beach.
 
 What I found was a level of salt air corrosion and rust on the strings that I 
ight expect to see on a 50 year old piano. All bare wire strings were 
ompletely orange. The bass strings had discolored and had a splotchy pattern on 
he copper. If the client purchases it, he is interested in having it completely 
estrung. In addition to the strings, I noticed a surface corrosion (speckling, 
or lack of a better word...) on the bridge pins, hitch pins, and to a lesser 
xtent on the tuning pins. Also, most of the "brass" screws had discoloration, 
long with what looked like verdigris on the pedals. The sostenuto pedal had a 
lastic cover still on it, and under the cover it was bright brass.
 
 The home had a humidifier which kept the house and piano at around 50% 
umidity all the time.  The regulation, cabinet, hammers, action, soundboard, 
tc. are all in good condition. Pretty much anything that wasn't made of metal 
as just fine.
 
 My plan is to remove all the rusty strings and use that opportunity to give 
he rest of it a good de-rusting.
 
 My question is...  What is the best way (chemical, steel wool, treatments, 
tc.) to remove the rust from all the pins, etc.? Once cleaned of all visible 
orrosion, will it have a propensity to rust again, faster than would normally 
e expected? Is there anything hidden that I should be looking for? 
 
 
 


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20110228/3d099eb4/attachment.htm>