Waxing eloquent

[Gilreath@aol.com]

Sorry about the title, but I just couldn't resist the pun.

Actually, I am curious if anyone has a good means of removing candle wax from
tuning pins and coils on a grand.  I have a customer who allowed candle wax
to run down off of the music desk onto the pins in the high treble of his
Yamaha G2.  Even after scraping from the sides of the pins, there is still a
problem with my tuning hammer sliping off of the pins.  BTW, if you've never
run into this it clogs up the tip of your hammer and makes tuning next to
impossible.  Obviously I can't use any form of solvent as this would liquify
the parafin in the wax and cause it to seep down into the block doing far
damage than it already has (pin tension seems okay at this point).  Melting
would also present the same problem.  I have toyed (is that actually a word)
with the idea of freezing the wax with a non-CFC component cooler that
electronic techs use and chippng of the majority of the offending stuff.  Any
ideas?  Also shold I be concerned with long-term contamination of the block
and eventual failure?  If this does contaminate, will it preclude plugging
because the glue bonds would not hold?

I am curious to hear about other experiences with this problem.

Thanks,

Allan Gilreath
Gilreath Piano & Organ Co.
Berry College
Gilreath@aol.com

"How much you do is important; how well you do it is decisive." - Anonymous