Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Kimball Whitney Spinet

Our favorite piano... But, a very good customer.

I've been tuning this piano like clockwork every year for the past 25 years or more during the last week in January. Very well taken care of except for the fact that the rubber grommets were getting very noisy and brittle.

Today, I took the action to my shop. Remember how they put in those screws? Those 20 foot long screws? RAM them in without pre-drilling or proper sized drilling? What a miserable thing to take apart! Even the fall board screws were jammed in. I had all I could do to get them out without stripping the slot in the flat head screws.

Then, I had to literally jam the grommets off from the keys as carefully as possible with a screwdriver. No way could I pull them off they were like, frozen in place. It was then, that I discovered sometime in the past year or two, I hadn't noticed it before, there was mice [censored] all over the place. On the stickers, the threads, the grommets, prongs on the ends of the keys etc. What a fricken mess. Talk about RUST??? It's all over those parts.

Now, I am deciding on the best course of action to remove the rust. I'm thinking, either good old fashioned steel wool or a drill with a wire brush perhaps? However, I do not want to ruin the threads either. Someone mentioned using "Never Dull" but, I've not tried it on rust before. Works great on brass or balance rail pins..

Anyway, I will be working on this action tomorrow in the shop. Any bright ideas out there for removing this rust easily besides good old fashioned elbow grease?

Have you tried Naval Jelly? It should dissolve rust down to bare metal so you won't have to use abrasives.

Naval Jelly? Never heard of it. Does Lowe's or some hardware store carry it?

How will it do on the threads?

Most hardware stores have it. Basically just phosphoric acid in a gel so it stays where it's put. Chemically changes iron oxide into iron phosphate (black rust), which does not adhere tightly to the rusted part and can be washed off with water and light scrubbing.

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphoric_acid#Rust_removal

If the threads aren't rusted away they should be fine, but if that were the case you'd be SOL either way.

If you google "rust removal products" you will get a lot of information.

Rust..."Michigan Milling"... if the rust is on the threads, there's a real good chance that the threaded portion will be a smaller diameter.

I have used Navel Jelly in the past and it has worked fairly well -on old cars- but switched to Eastwood products .

Jerry:

There is a saying on the ships that “rust never sleeps”. I have some experience.

Naval Jelly is good. Be sure to wear proper protection and keep it away from glass, including eyeglasses. Phosphoric acid etches glass. DAMHIK.

Another great product is BP blaster. I would try it first with a scotch-brite pad. It’s in all the automotive and hardware stores. And since it is not WD-40, it is perfectly safe on any part of a piano just like Naval Jelly! (Just kidding, I am sure you will use whatever you decide on with care.)

Can't you buy a new set of stickers?

Thanks for the advice.

I did buy the Naval Jelly, I couldn't find Eastwood Products in the stores but, never having used it before, I was chicken because I have bad luck. I'll try it on my wife's car instead.

Anyway, everything came out great. I used Liquid Wrench to loosen up the frozen nuts letting it set for a while. I inserted the let off regulation tool that we use for these square nuts on spinets in a drill with a vise grips on the wires for support to remove them. I reversed the process when I installed the new grommets adding Protek MLP as a lubricant to help them to go on easier.

The worst part was removing the rust. I used my gun barrel cleaning brass thingy in a drill to get inside of the U shaped part of the prongs on the ends of the keys and a small dremmel wire brush on a drill to remove the rust from the tops and bottoms of the prongs. I used steel wool 4-0 on the threaded parts of the stickers. Cleaned up pretty nice. I had my son do that hard stuff.

If I bought a new set of stickers Keith, I would have had to to re-pin the whole thing and install new grommets besides but, thanks for the suggestion anyway. This was really much easier and less time consuming.

Interesting read...hadn't thought of liquid wrench...cool idea...

RPD

How about navel jelly...eeeeew....:-)?

Jerry, you did what I had done in the exact same circumstance several years ago except that I used Protek to dissolve the rust. It is designed to dissolve verdigris, so I reasoned that it would work, however, I think nearly any solvent would. The Protek grease was a good idea for installing the new grommets.

I had never had a Dremel tool until last Spring when I needed one for the mother of all brass flange repair jobs that I had to do. I didn't want to get into installing new rails because I was afraid they might not fit well. I don't know, I have never tried that. So, I had about 15-20 repair clips to install and needed to grind down the remnants. They guy who was helping me suggested a Dremel tool for that. It worked and all of the repair clips are very secure after applying a bit of thick CA glue to hold them.

I didn't like the idea of buying that tool for just that one job but it cost less than one rail would have cost and I would have needed three. My friend suggested however that I would find the Dremel tool useful in any number of other circumstances for the rest of my life. Your problem would have been much easier to solve if you had a Dremel tool for it. I haven't used it on any pianos yet but I did use it to clean calcium deposits from the hardware in my bathtub. Anywhere you need high speed, a light and easily handled tool with pin point precision, a Dremel is the tool to have.

Some other piano situations I can think of: warped keys that rub together; the Dremel will shave off the amount you need for clearance in a jiffy. While it is not good for general hammer shaping, it can be used to trim some edges of hammers that are angled and very close to each other and tend to rub together. In any situation where you need to remove a bit of material quickly and easily, it will work great compared to hand tools.

What I use a Dremel tool for most often these days is with an abrasive cutting wheel to cut a slot in a recalcitrant screw to get it out. The last time was when I had to cut the head off a screw because the screws in the fallboard hinge were frozen. I cut the screw that acted as the hinge pin, and then used the Dremel to cut a slot in the remainder and back it out.

If I need to use a screw extractor, I use the Dremel to carve a dimple where the hole needs to be drilled to make sure it is centered.

I do not use it for shaping hammers, but some people get to be good at that. It is worthwhile getting the sanding drum and a box of bands for it, though.

I got my first Dremel years before I started working on pianos. It wore out, but I am still on my second.

There is an excellent product I use for rust called Evapo-Rust that I have used for the last year. Although its intended to be used in a container and the rusted parts soaked for several hours it can also be brushed on repeatedly on items. Its not caustic like most rust removers and is water based. Here is a link to it... http://www.evaporust.com.
I actually have 2 dremel tools with one being a cordless rechargeable one for light duty. I'll spin center pins in rebushed centers to put some settling wear in on them if they were freshly reamed. Great for polishing stuff too. I actually ground a tiny hole in a thin (1/16")glass speedo cover for my motorbike restoration using a conical grind stone. No glass person would touch this job for fear of cracking it using a conventional carbide drill. Dremels are great.