Serious Piano Cleaning!
When an antique piano comes into our store, it it usually covered in 100+ years of dirt and grime. We typically spend 3 FULL days cleaning the piano. First, we disassemble the piano and blow out the entire piano and action with compressed air. We also use baking soda to clean the action. Next, we sand and buff every individual piece, shine and scrub the strings, and clean out the trapwork. So clean after!
Here’s an overview of everything we do when cleaning a piano before restoration!
| Tip piano and take off bottom board |
| Clean trap work: |
| Sand / buff each individual piece. You can soda blast before you take it apart if it works better. Buff all screws and metal. Replace felt / leather and lubricate. |
| Use the planer or vacuum sander to clean the board. Glue/repair cracks if necessary. Replace this the bottom panel altogether if cracks are bad enough. |
| Make sure to keep everything organized and labeled so you can put it back together exactly the same. Take pictures, upload to this piano’s google album |
| Shine strings. Use coarse Scotch-Brite, then also use steel wool on the bass strings to give an extra shine. |
| Put trap work back on piano and tip up right |
| Clean key bed. Use TSP and Scotch-Brite for balance Rail and front rail. Sand the rest. If the keybed is painted, use TSP and a rag. |
| Shine tips of pins on front rail and balance rail with Scotch-Brite. Straighten the front rail pins. |
| Take the piano out back and blow out with compressed air |
| Clean the back of piano with TSP. Check for metal with a magnet. |
| Shine screws and Metal. For large bolt screws across top – use sandpaper on the drill press, than buff. For the bearing rail, the rail beneath the tuning pins, shine with bright-boy. If needed buff each screw on rail one at a time. |
| Replace Felts, including back rail felt. |
| Clean pedal rods and replace needed felt. |
| One last vacuum |
Here is a video of the action prep we do in our piano shop after we are finished cleaning the piano. All the felts, dampers, hammers, need to be removed.
Prepping a piano action for restoration.
Schedule us to clean your piano! Just fill out the form below!