lead corrosion revisited

Willem Blees wimblees at aol.com
Wed Mar 19 21:34:33 MST 2008


At our meeting last night, one of the members brought up something very interesting. He did some research and found information from "Lead Corrosion in Exhibition Ship Models-?Carderock Division of NAVSEA Warfare Center. (www.dt.navy.mil/cnsm/lead_01.html.)
?
In a nutshell, it is not necessarily high humidity that causes lead to corrode. It seems that wood and glue causes lead to corrode. All woods contain acetic acid, which causes lead to corrode. It is also?the chemicals found in glues and even the punchings. 

But what is interesting is, why are some leads susceptible to corrosion, and not others? The consensus amongst the other three techs here, is?that 25 year or older Sohmer and Kimball pianos are the worst. At least here in Hawaii.?What is it in the make up of the lead in those pianos that causes them to corrode? I have found a few pianos back in St. Louis with this problem, but not as many as here. (I've done 10 sets of keys?out of about 225 pianos,?just since I got here) Although other pianos have that problem, it is?very seldom. It happens only occasionally in Asian made pianos, but then there aren't that many that are more than 30 years old.?

Just thought I'd share that information with you guys.??


Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT
Piano Tuner/Technician
Honolulu, HI
Author of 
The Business of Piano Tuning
available from Potter Press
www.pianotuning.com
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