Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Candle Wax in the piano

I recently tuned a Yamaha Grand that the last octave from C7 to C8 had candle wax spilled onto the tuning pins and the area right around them.

The piano tuned right up, but I'm not sure how to get that wax out of that area around the tuning pins and plate. Naturally its on the strings too.

I thought about taking my heat gun on the lowest setting I could use to just melt the wax and try to soak it up with paper towel or vacuum it with my shop vac.

Anyone ever run into this? Any better suggestions? Leave it and let them keep playing? Seems to me more a cosmetic problem than anything else.

Actually, I offer for consideration the opposite approach, Freeze Spray*. You can get it at electronics supply houses. It has a nozzle for accuracy and should make the wax very brittle so it can be shattered and you can use a vacuum to get the bits out.

I'm not a tech and have only done this to gum in a carpet where it worked fabulously.

Kurt

*in electronics freeze spray is used to force thermal cycling for troubleshooting.

Heat gun?.... I don't think so.

If you use a heat gun won't the wax melt and possibly contaminate the pin block? Does that seem like a good idea? Seems fraught with danger to me. Why not sharpen/bevel a hammer shank and use it as a scraper to remove the majority of the wax? A brisk wiping with a cloth will remove it from any unwound strings.

I would leave whatever does not scrape or wipe off. It will not harm anything.

freeze spray is a good idea. Had a customer once tell me of a mystious disappearence of a huge candle left burning on a old upright over a day or two. Found just a bit of wax on the keyblock. I pulled the fall and lifted the keys and here was 2 pounds of wax encasing a mouse nest.

I have accidentally dripped wax on my piano before (only the outside of the cabinet, lucky me...)

If you melt it, it will run where you don't want it, and even what you think you have wiped up will still leave a coating. Either freeze-spray and crack it off, or make very careful use of a scraper, or just leave it alone, depending on the location and amount. If you get a scraper with a nice smooth blade you can carefully "shave" the majority of the wax off of a smooth surface.

That's why I'm asking here. In 30 some years of this work I haven't ever run into this.

My inclination is to leave it alone. It's not hurting anything and with the music desk in place it can't be seen.

Does bother the customer though so I told her I would think about how to get it out.

But I see some ideas that combined might do the trick better than my first thought.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Roy

Your inclination is correct. Who knows what spray freeze would do to the coils, the plate gilding, and the tuning pins....

Mineral spirits (paint thinner) will dissolve wax, but you have to be careful that it does not affect other things.

Thanks for the replies. I visited with the owner, and since it is not hurting anything, and there isn't big globs of it, we will just leave it be. It's hidden anyway when the music desk is in place.

She was worried because her last tech would not tune the last octave of the piano because of the wax.

I didn't have any problems tuning it, so I'm not sure what the other tech thought. But she just moved back to my area and has known me forever and so it looks like another old customer is back.

Thanks again guys. I just wondered if anyone else had ever run across this type problem.

Roy

Sounds like the other tech didn't feel like tuning the top octave, and found an easy out.

Quite a bit actually.For the most part I just vacuum out what I can and then wait until they decide to restore or replace.

I've run into it a handful of times on grands; one of them a Steinway.

We had one where they had left the candle burning on the top of a console, it ended up burning the lid, almost all the way through...it did have a hole in the top.

Ah yes the left-over burning candle…..like this one that came in last year…… had to do an old-time veneer repair…..a good argument for keeping some old piano boards around for the original veneers……

This one was refinished in shellac at some point and was not doing so well, so she did the whole thing over….

http://picasaweb.google.com/silverwoodpianos/BroadwoodGrand#

Dan is filled with GREAT information about refinishing, repairing finishes and all of that. He helped me with 3 pianos that I took in for my son to work on that I knew nothing about. While they didn't come out nearly as well as if he had done it, they looked a heck of a lot better than they did before I started on them............ I think?????

Shellac is a very good finish for pianos, but you have to take care of it properly. Old finishes were quite similar except for different resins, which are not as hard as shellac. Except for the veneer on the music desk, all of the damage, including the color mismatch, could have been repaired on that piano. The veneer damage probably would have happened no matter what the finish. You just need to keep water off the piano. Water is a problem no matter what finish you use.

Ha!...that’s funny Jerry…………… I remember those little videos I made and sent them to you. I still have them actually.... I recall that the pianos you did there came out pretty good for a refinishing DIY’er….moooooaaa….. gotcha…..

Thanks for the plug about refinishing…not totally the expert……….. I put a cheque in the mail for you anyways….

Quite true actually, but you have to apply it correctly too otherwise that is what one ends up with…..a very non-durable mess.

This one had so many small scratch lines and water stains it was easier to rip the finish and replace it with a finish and tone colour she wanted. Then after the Olympic rental, and the damaged music desk, the refinish job was inevitable. This one came in under the quoted price for refinish too. How often does that happen…..