I service an older rebuilt grand for a Hist. Society Museum in the Dallas area. It is located in an 1800's something church,(pre-modern construction etc.). After the first year or two I noticed mold(white), forming on the inside of rim & underneath. They have since installed an air regulation system to protect the building which has helped w/ mold reduction, but from time to time it still creeps up. The mold appears on the finish(lacq.) & on sdboard. Has anyone dealt w/ this/solutions. I use steal wool/napthta & lightly remove, but will @ some point run out of finish. In all articles researched in journals/seminars thus far no acceptable solutions short of refinishing which is not needed. Just preventing re-occurring mold. Also, since Ive got my bathing suit on, here's another one for anyone out there. Last week I serviced a cust. which oens an 1895 Bluthner Alliquott grand. For many years it was in New Orleans. After arriving in Dallas in 2004, cust. had me out to tune & all things were well. Last week several keys were catching on each other. Upon inspection it appears/best guess is that after climate change/re-location keys were drying out & shrinking causing leads to back out & corrode. I lightly removed approx. 80 key leads removing lead/corrosion. 4-5 had begun to split & I suggested I inspect during next tng. I suggested that after 5 yrs. keys may not shrink anymore. Can anyone give a discourse on the Aliquott grands. Tuning etc. No articles found. After calling a few local heavyweights, consensus is tune the sympathetic string 1 octave higher that unison. I'd love to hear a little bit on the thinking/creative design behind this. These sympathetic strings sounded pretty dead, no resonance. On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 4:28 AM, <david at piano.plus.com> wrote: > John's suggestion about the sand blaster and glass beads sounds ideal, > because it really would clean the action, and "get the corners". > > If you don't have a compressor etc, however, cleaning by hand using any of > the branded anti-mold products that you can get in hardware stores should > be ok. > > I'd be inclined to wear a face mask if the growth is heavy. Although, if > you are cleaning with a solution on a damp cloth, hopefully not much will > get liberated into the air, and most will be taken up on the cloth. > > It's important to consider future prevention. For this mold to have > grown, conditions must have favoured it. The piano must have been in a > damp room, with moisture condensing inside it. Occasional use of the > piano in a room that is itself only occasionally used, (and only > occasionally heated/ventilated) are likely factors. > > It may be a good idea to suggest a Dampp Chaser. This will keep the piano > warmer than the surrounding air in the room, so that moisture will not > condense into the piano in future. > > Best regards, > > David Boyce > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20091031/05e67698/attachment.htm>
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