My church had a fire about 8 years ago and the Maeri baby grand was slightly damaged. The top suffered som heat damage (peeling and bubbling) and the rest was damaged from the water. Since then the piano has just sat in a garage. Immediately following the fire, the piano was extremely unplayable. Just recently, when "inspecting" the piano, it didn't seem to play "that bad." The strings are rusty, as are the pins that hold them. Its out of tune, and when playing, the keys are jerky but do move up and down without getting stuck. 1 to 2 keys don't play, but the other 86 do fine (aside from the jerkiness). Any advice on how practical it would be to restore this piano to a playable condition? The outside looks are irrelevant as far as I'm concerned, but playability and sound are a very important factor (it would be my home practice piano). Thanks

Get a tech to evaluate what's going on. He needs to tune it and pull the action. "Playable" is a pretty broad term, so explain to your tech exactly what you expect, and hopefully he will tell you if the piano can deliver what you want. This cannot be done on line- get someone to look at it.

Sam

Smoke particles can be very corrosive, and it tends to get everywhere (imagine about 1000 pivoting joints in a grand).

At least it's been a while since it happened. Often fire and water damage takes a year or more to fully develop.

--Cy--