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So I have a kawai grand from the early 90's. The original owner had the piano kind of by the ocean. It was up on a large hill 1-2 miles inland. The piano had a damp-chaser installed by original owner and had a wool string cover. Here are pictures of the strings.. I was wondering if this is something that can be addressed without re-stringing.. a few questions.. can i clean this myself? or should i have my tech clean it? should i leave it alone and possibly re-string a few years down the road.. i live in southern California and not close to the beach so i don't have to worry about conditions here anymore.

Well, here's one opinion. It's cosmetic. Don't worry about it.

If you try to clean the bass strings you could loosen the copper winding and they will buzz and rattle. It's best to leave them alone till you decide to restring.

Yes, it is possible, but not by you. Bill Bremmer wrote an excellent article on rejuvenating bass strings in the PTG Journal. Find a tech who is familiar with that procedure.

Do you have a link to this article?

this puts me at ease.. but i would like to get them cleaned as they are kind of an eye sore.

How do they sound?

They sound fine.. No dullness to the sound. I'm wondering if cleaning them would make them sound better or just make it look better.

It's not online. The procedure is basically:

1. Raise damper-stop rail and prop up damper tray to raise dampers.
2. Using a Dremel tool w/ soft wire wheel attachment, polish the strings.
3. Loosen strings by 3/4 of a turn at the tuning pin. Remove strings from hitch pin and twist one full turn in the direction of the winding. Return loop to hitch pin.
4. Increase string tension and polish exposed underside of string.
5. Reset dampers and tune.

Hearing protection should be used. Do not attempt this yourself.

I've done this on my piano, but its a 140 year old $500 upright so I didn't have much to lose On a piano this nice there is a real chance that you could end up making it sound worse and/or damaging something expensive just to make it look better. If it bothers you enough to consider restringing, then it would probably make sense to find a good tech who knows how to do it and is willing to give it a shot.

I lived about a mile off the beach in so cal for a while, its amazing how fast that salt air attacks anything metal!

Good luck!
Rob

I am surprised that with a string cover plus DC the plain wire are so much corroded.

I seem to notice this does not happen as much with Roslau wire (if the piano is not kept open all day) .

I also have met a few 20 years old German pianos coming from the ocean and with really little corrosion. (there is a plated string sold by Roslau, but I did not see it advertised in much piano brands, however some are "tropicalized" and the wire quality may be just that)

Damper wire are easy to bend, I would not do that myself.

For the plain wire, , cleaning the underside is necessary when the corrosion is high. It is a difficult job. A wire with corrosion on the underside and none on the top is sounding unclear, in my experience.

If you can clean the plain wire, I would use some light oil on them, (as lighter fluid) to protect them.

I think this is a particular issue in southern california. My guess is maybe a combination of the warmish year round temperature and the almost constant breeze blowing off the water along the shore? We only lived there for about 2 years, and in that time all sorts of things, lamps, furniture, etc started to develop significant surface rust. And as I say, we were a mile inland but close enough to feel that breeze. We also used to get a "marine layer" that would blow in most nights and probably deposit a layer of salt condensation on everything. It probably didn't help either that due to the moderate temps most folks keep the windows open year round, and many near the beaches don't have central air. Works out great on all but the ~7 days a year when the wind turns around and blows in off the desert

Rob

the 25-30 years old grand I have seen that had a string cover did shine absolutely like new. Certainly better than nothing .

I dont really believe DC can correct a permanent warm high humidiy level if the temperature is warm, the efficiency of the rods is lowered (they just warm the air, in the end)

I had my tech come out today and clean and polish the strings. he did a pretty good job but im not 100% satisfied. he wasn't able to get the string area between the pins.. Im guessing that's where steps 2 and 3 come in handy.. am I correct? he used a 3 step process but I don't believe he used a dremel with wire attachment. hes coming back to tune the piano on Friday, so perhaps I should tell him about the 5 step process?

btw... I contacted bill bremmer and he talked about the wheel wire.. just wish he had the article he wrote still but he no longer had it on his comp. I will let me tech know about that 5 step process. is there anything else I should let him know about before he comes on Friday to tune the piano?

I do have it on my computer as a pdf. If it's ok with Mr. Bremmer, I can send it to you.

I don't believe it will be possible to get every trace of rust removed in the tuning pin area. A steel brush with long bristles can be tried but I don't believe you'll ever get things to look like new material.

Removing corrosion from wound strings can definitely rejuvenate their tone. Removing rust from plain wire will improve the tone only marginally at best. Some people seem to think the strings sound better when they are clean but I think that may be an illusion.

Removal of rust from the tuning pin area will only make it look better, it certainly won't improve the tone. I can understand why you would want to make the piano look as good and clean as you can, however. This would be one area where I think you could safely do it yourself. If you can find a steel bristled brush (not a long scrub brush type but something about 4 inches long that is the shape of a small paint brush), you may be able to make the tuning pin area look much better with a lot of painstaking work.

Any recommendations on where to find aforementioned steel bristle brush? I looked through Home Depots site but they just have the scrubbing kind.

Restringing will solve your concerns. It's not fare to yourself; the piano; or a technician to be tuning, voicing, and regulating around rusted strings. What Kawai model is it?

whats a ballpark figure for re-stringing and replacing pins? btw: its a GS-40