Hi folks, The music department of a college that I service has recently moved into a new facility where newly-installed ethylene glycol (with additives) lines for the HVAC system leaked down on a Yamaha C3 (1984). Glycol has dripped / streamed onto the lid, across the dampers, down the belly rail into portions of the back action and keybed, as well as splattered onto various other spots. A Hammer looks pretty when all saturated and swelled up with glycol, but I doubt that it'll be an effective voicing technique to explore on Asian pianos. I don't believe that the tuning pin field has been moistened, except maybe a few splatter-drops. The keybed wood has cracked a bit along grain-lines at the end-grain inserts (for the glide bolts). Of course, I'm faced with developing an estimate for insurance purposes. I will be calling the experts at the Forest Products Lab in Madison, but perhaps someone on the list has experience with this. I have specific questions to explore about the future viability of the instrument, or remediation costs: I know the stuff is a dessicant/preservative, but how has it, and how will it affect the swelling and dimensional stability of the wood? Consequently, how has (how will) the strain of the wood expansion affected glue joints? How might the glues will be affected? How might things change in the summer once there is additional moisture in the air? What can I expect Saturated felt-key-end felt for example-to behave like? (get too hard and noisey?) Will the glycol with additives creep along the strings into the tuning pin block? I think the soundboard and bellyrail will be ok-right? I think the finish will be ok-right? I know I'm not thinking of everything to investigate on this. Thanks for any input. Mark Ultsch, RPT Madison, WI -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20110110/a48ccdd9/attachment.htm>
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