<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; = charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1458" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dean May queried: "<FONT face="Times = New Roman" size=3>I am looking at refinishing a 6 foot Baldwin, about 50 years = old. It has a<BR>satin ebony finish that has bad water damage on the lid and side. = I'm not<BR>sure if the finish is original or not. It is apparent that it is = mahogany in<BR>the areas of the water damage.<BR><BR>Can anyone tell me if the = odds are good for it to be all mahogany? I have a<BR>customer who wants it but in = a natural wood finish. Will I get myself into<BR>trouble to convert it to = a natural wood finish?"<BR><BR>Many thanks,</FONT></FONT></DIV><FONT = face=Arial size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3> <DIV><BR>Dean,</DIV> <DIV>There's really no way to tell, until you've stripped the whole = thing. Many times, different veneers were used on an Ebony piano. It's what I call a = "Friday Piano". I'm sure you've seen an upright with a cacophy of woods, usually = when the client does his/her own refinishing.<G></DIV> <DIV>(When Friday rolled around, they had all these mismatched case = parts...so, Black it was!)</DIV> <DIV>The second problem you may have is getting all of the "black" out = of the wood pores. This can be a real bear on some porous woods, like = mahogany.</DIV> <DIV>Regards,</FONT></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Joe Garrett, R.P.T.<BR>Captain, Tool Police<BR>Squares R I</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>