[pianotech] Opinion on Termite Damaged Piano Requested

[Terry Farrell]

Looks like you did a very nice job on your bottom board replacement Richard. One thing I have noticed with termite damage is that they seem to have preferences of one wood species over another. I'll see damage in one component made of one wood species, but the damage stops right at the joint with a component made of a different wood species.

Terry Farrell

On Oct 26, 2012, at 9:52 PM, Richard W. Bushey wrote:

> Termites or Carpenter Ants? Since pianos from Hawaii and termite damage was brought up, thought I'd share some pics with you.  Just replaced the bottom board of this piano just 2 weeks ago.  Had ant (or termite) damage back in 2004 and the piano did come from Hawaii.  I'm thinking I saw something in the tecnician's notes about an ant colony that was exterminated in 2004.  I service Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo. and this was from a military family who must have been stationed in Hawaii at some point.
>  
> Anyway, I'm really not sure how they used the piano from then til now, but the pedals were sure in unuseable condition when I found them.  
>  
> Tilted on it's back, and the bottom board off, there was no evidence of damage in the main case at all, only the bottom board.  Why, don't know, but I guess they were very lucky.  I inspected the entire piano and saw no evidence of them anywhere else and the piano tuned very well. Boy was I glad.  Those critters can sure do alot of damage in a short amount of time!  If the damage had been more extensive, I'd likely walked away from the job, but it looked pretty contained.
>  
> The pics are in no order, and some who like to look at things really close will be bothered by the fact that in the tilted picture the pedals don't look right, that's because they weren't hooked up yet.  Same with one of the pics on the table saw.
>  
> Always interesting things to find in this profession.  Keeps life exciting!
>  
>  
> Richard W. Bushey
> Richard's Piano Service
> www.RichardsPianoService.com
> Rbushey at RichardsPianoService.com
> 573-765-9903
>  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121027/87703d1c/attachment.htm>