Stain for musical instruments

We recently purchased an old piano at a surplus auction. It’s in good mechanical shape but has some graffiti and some spots where the finish is rubbed off.

I’ve heard that applying new varnish can mess up the sound of the instrument. Does anyone have any recommendations for fixing it? Or is it better to leave it as is?

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Is @fedakkee still around/monitoring TALK?

Definitely talk to a luthier or some sort of professional instrument maker. Even better - if you can talk to the maker company (if they still exist) they can guide you in best what to do. Short of that, a call to a qualified piano repair tech can at least guide you in the right direction.

Stains and varnishes for musical instruments can definitely affect tone, though some more than others. I have a few spots that need to be touched up on my cello, but won’t until I can get it back to the East Coast and the shop I bought it at. I realize that with a piano you can’t just carry it back to a shop, but it’s worth doing right.

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More often than not they’ll used either dyes or tinted lacquers, I cant speak from pianos and can only speak from my brief attempt at a non functioning wildly stained figured guitar, but luthiers only deal with string instruments, a piano tuner might be able to help as they do attempt some slight repairs but a piano technician would be the person to talk to, but from what I know it’s most likely dyed then sprayed with either tinted or non tinted nitrocellulose lacquer which I have quite a bit of experience spraying and it’s something that you’ll never find in a can can’t br brushed on and you pretty much need a professional spray booth to be able to do it without costing brain cells(it’s got a lot more noxious chemicals than normal lacquer but the results outweigh those extra voc’s) as mentioned above sound quality is one of the pluses of nitrocellulose

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