Hey Now to all, OK mildew it is then. I may not be as experienced as some on the list, but I have seen at least several hundred on pianos of similar age a type around Southern California over the years. I have never seen anything growing on an action quite like this. I do not think the white fuzz was produced by any rodent. I did not find any droppings and I cleaned the piano thoroughly. I would guess that being So Cal is virtually a desert (now an asphalt desert). We have to import most of our water, you don't normally find the damp environment to produce this type of mildew growth. This 1953 Kimball console is in Huntington Harbor and the back yard is a boat dock. It has been there for many years according to the client. So my guess is it took a few decades for it look like that. I cleaned it up by blowing it out with my shop vac (outside of course), and using a paint brush to get into hard to reach places. I used 250 grit sand paper on the damper felt in the bass to get the crusty zinger stuff off and just needle voiced the flats. Worked pretty good for the most part. I mean it still had damping issues but it took the buzzinger sound out of the felt contacting the string. The dude abides. Steve Blasyak Orange County Chapter Prua Vida -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090315/166bdbbe/attachment.html>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC