Polishing Grand Piano's

[f1guy68]

It's always a long winter in Canada, so to fill in some of the slow days, I was lucky enough to pick up a gig polishing Kawai Grand Piano's!

These ebony beauties swirl and mar so easily from the daily dusting they receive by sales staff, yet polishing them crystal clear can prove a challenge as the polyester (satin & high gloss) finish is pretty hard!

Well..the paino's are not so hard to do, but the piano benches are usually very bad!

But with 95-99% success, I have been using #83 or #80 and the rotary, and then #9 with the PC, and then NXT as the LSP!

My only immediate thought of another product I could use is Meguiar's # 17? Have not bought any as yet.

I called Kawai to see what they would use, but they don't want to tell you too much for some reason?

I have not taken many pictures of these piano's and benches that I have done but will make note to do so for the future. It's very interesting work actually. But the polyester stinks really bad when polishing! A mask is a must!!!!

Anyone else ever polish a polyester resin Grand Piano, and if so what were some of your steps and products used.

Thanks,

Richard

[scrub]

Sounds like a good angle for your business. Find a need and fill it. I'm sure some well to do folks would need their baby grand's finish reconditioned. I'm looking forward to the pics.

Good luck.

[f1guy68]

Hey scrub,

Yessiree...find the need and fill it for sure!

These piano's range from $25K up to "If you need to ask you can't afford it" ....lol

So...hence the owners of these piano's usually have a decent bank roll and drive some lovely cars and live in rather large homes and estates.

I hope to be able to successfully get cross business from these fine folks! Do the piano..get the car...Do the car..get the piano...hehehehe

I will post pic's upon my next detail of a piano!

[scrub]

Nice! You can offer services of taking care of both the client's pride and joys. Their ride and baby grand. Great point there too. That would be total hook up for you.

As your theory states about bank rolls... this will focus your business to the high end market. The market every detailer dreams of. And you have the inside track or the face time with your (and most everyone's) target market.

[f1guy68]

Exactly....

Sometimes I really am pleased with myself and these little brainwaves....lol

I'm not as think as you stupid I am....Hahahahahahahahahaha

[Teak]

Sounds like a good niche and inside track to the garage full of cars. Have you
Meguiar's kits made for Fender Guitars which is Perfection Piano care or the Guitar kit?

Looking forward to see the before and after pics.

Eric

[f1guy68]

Teak,

I am using auto products and the results are amazing to say the least!

I start with #83 on the rotary, then #9 on the PC, and then follow up with some NXT and let it sit for an hour before I buff it off.

Incredible results. Next one I do I will take many pictures.

Perhaps I should try some of the products you mentioned, but I'm totally pleased with the results with what I use thus far.

Thanks for the tip,

[gb387]

Can't wait to see some photos... There are some amazing pianos out there worth more than most vehicles. They too need someone to take good care of them.

[f1guy68]

There are some amazing pianos out there worth more than most vehicles.

So true! I have been to the retailer that sells the Kawai Brand and they have some grand pianos locked up in a seperate showroom and if you have to ask the price then you cannot afford it! The highest I have seen is $140,000.00 CDN.

They are so stunning to look at, the finish is flawless and the internals a marvel to see!

The average price for the so called mediocre pianos are around $30,000.00 CDN.

[wblynch]

You might want to contact your local Piano Tuner's Guild - or equivalent.

Getting in touch with piano tuners could be a great source of contacts. Most tuner/technicians are not skilled in polishing techniques and often can't devote the time to properly polish a piano.

Not only a good source of referrals, tuners are great people and they are always willing to help and offer advice.

Be careful though, you may end up with more pianos to polish than cars.

-Bill Lynch

[f1guy68]

Originally posted by wblynch
You might want to contact your local Piano Tuner's Guild - or equivalent.

Getting in touch with piano tuners could be a great source of contacts. Most tuner/technicians are not skilled in polishing techniques and often can't devote the time to properly polish a piano.

Not only a good source of referrals, tuners are great people and they are always willing to help and offer advice.

Be careful though, you may end up with more pianos to polish than cars.

-Bill Lynch

Thanks for the advice Bill.

I have already had the chance to talk to a few tuners and they have accepted my business card to hand out and I will do the same for them.

I don't wish to get stuck just doing piano's, but there are a few good things about it:

Indoors in the hot and cold
Easy work for the most part
People seem to love their piano's more than their cars!
Good profit vs. little product used.
I get to play a song or two as I do play the paino ;-)

Thanks Again for the tips!

[Buellwinkle]

Having been one of the few people in So Cal that can do polyester repair on pianos and been a piano technician for many years I can give some advice. Polyester is very thick, about 20-40 mils so it's not like automotive paint. The polyster is not sprayed on like car paint but the parts are passed through a curtain of polyester.

To give you an idea, when I do chip repair on these Asian pianos, I use a very sharp chissel to smooth out the repair, not something you would do on a car.

The edges are very thinly coated just as in cars so it's very easy to reach OSB (what most Asian pianos are made of) in a hurry. While you can try a foam pad and DA buffer, it may take you a long time to get great results. I used a 10" loose cotton polishing wheel on my Makita rotary buffer with different grades of polishing rouge to get the swirl free look. If the finish was deeply swirled I would wet sand it 1,000-2,000 grit and then buff. I never waxed a piano as it's stationary in the house, not a car on the road that you are trying to protect.

The thing to be careful with is on some brands, like Yamaha, the entire piano is not polyester and has a very thin coating of either polyurethane or lacquer which is easy to wear through, specially thinking it's polyester (legs, benches, etc). The way to tell is to sand in an inconspicous area, if the residue is black (for a black piano) it's not polyester as it sands white.

Where I used to bring in some extra dough with Pianos is detailing the soundboard on grands. It's very difficult to dust under the strings unless you know what you are doing.

As for Kawai technical support, not the best and can be a PITA to deal with. The best technical support in the business is from Samick, to the point where I call them an tell them about a problem and parts are in the mail within hours. Also very helpful when I had problems with polyester finishes.

As for products specifically made for cleaning polyester pianos that I personaly use on my piano, check out Cory http://corycare.com/ The best product they have is called buff-brite, a tiny bit on cotton cloth and you can quickly get the brass nameplate on the fallboard to shine like new, customers loved that.

[f1guy68]

Buellwinkle,

Thanks for that great information. Very much appreciated. Your experience should come in very handy.

I was looking at the loose cotton polishing wheel and some different rouges, and perhaps I should purchase as a comparision of results using those products vs. the auto products and rotary I'm using now with tremendous results.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if car paint thickness was like that of these polyester finish piano's...lol

I never really thought about detailing the soundboard until you mentioned it. What process do you use for this?

Again, I really appreciate the info above and feel free to provide any further links or resources that will help me along the way.

[Buellwinkle]

You probably get good results because pianos waiting to be sold in stores haven't yet been thouroughly abused by consumers get, wait until you get get one in an commercial setting like a hotel or bar or worse yet, a household with kids.

To clean soundboards on grands, remove the lid (slide out pins on the hinges very carefully, don't bend them or they won't go back in). I use small cheap terry towels like the ones you get 25 for $10 at costco. If it's really dirty I get them slightly moist (not wet, maybe mist on some Meguiars Detail spray) and push them under the strings from the side of the grand where the lid hinges are and push them in with a flexible wooden stick (or Spurlock tool mentioned below) with rounded corners (dont' want to slip and gouge the soundboard). That's gets the large part of the soundboard clean. To get into the nitty gritty you'll need some specialized soundboard cleaning tools from Spurlock - http://www.spurlocktools.com/id32.htm

Also, going through all that trouble, you should also clean the keys. Corey has great key cleaner. If the keys need a little more attention, I've used Meguiars plastic polishes with good results on plastic keys.

[f1guy68]

Thanks Again for the excellent info and link Buell!

I will take your advice and attempt to clean a soundboard.

You're correct in that I have not a had a really nasty piano, (just minor dusting marks and spiderwebbing) but I have had my share of brutal benches and thus my amazment at how well the #83 & #9 and NXT works at getting the bench restored to like new.

I have had to wet sand a couple of benches because they were deeply scratched, but have been able thus far to remove 99.9% of them.

I have some of the Corey Cleaner and it does a pretty good job.

Thanks Again.