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Frito, the rust can dull the tone a bit, increase the likelyhood of broken strings, and also incurr false beats if the rust is heavy and unevenly distributed along the speaking length of the string. Lots of old pianos out there with lightly rusted/pitted strings and the owners really can't tell the difference. Tuners and more professional musicians will pick up on the subtle differences.

There's nothing subtle about the tub-tub-tubbiness of my bass octave. I've another piano only just over 100 years old where 1/2 dozen notes are steel wound. Again the copper-wound that follow sing out beautifully, the steel wound - tub-tub-tubby.

Is there a UK equivalent to Evapo-Rust? (though perhaps I'd be happier with a soft brass brush and magnifying glass kinda like they do with old masters)

I've read on several guitar forums that they have been using ultrasonic cleaning tanks on their wound strings with great success. These are typically used for cleaning jewelry and other objects with fine features/crevices ect. They use isopropyl alcohol as the cleaning medium. Many of the users claim higher partials become more prominant and the string rings more clearly after cleaning.

Has anyone tried this on wound piano strings?

I tried to find such Ultrasonic bath to clean agrafes and bass strings.

It is filled, I did not knew which liquid is used. Isopropyl is excellent as it is almost acetone, probably less acid

very certainly cleaning must be effective. but how to obtain a large enough bath for a low enough price ?
I thought of using the ultrasonic parts that can be find in moisteners but they are not powerful enough - I tried to fulfill a tank with one US piece in it, and water (plastic tank) very little result.

Possibly some external company have the adequate baths ( I find one for glass beads blasting, just near my place)

I was thinking that the strings could get pulled through the top of a tank in an arc. They typically only clean for a few minutes at most so a band of base strings could pprobably get pulled through a bath in under and hour.