Page 42 - Mothmageddon

“What’s Eating You 2?” Mothmageddon
CHAPTER 6
How Moths Destroy Piano Music
Right now, moths could be steadily devouring the inside of your piano and the damage could cost many hundreds of pounds to repair.
Moths can cause serious damage to these valuable and fragile musical instruments. Among the favourite food sources for the larvae of clothes moths is felt, which is made from matted and condensed woollen fibres. They go for the softest felt first, this is what they really love – such as the cushion felt – if it’s very dense it’s not as appealing. Unfortunately, felt in pianos is used to cushion delicate parts such as hammer heads and dampers.
Moths and other insects will eat the felt and the glue and the hammer heads and dampers will become far less effective and eventually disappear over time. The hammer head is probably the most important component in a piano so any damage is serious.
The moth larvae may also be present on other felt fittings inside the instrument which are often invisible to the naked eye.
The inside of a piano is a perfect environment for moths, it’s dark, rarely disturbed and it has a ready food source (the felt). They usually start at the hidden areas such as key rest felt, but they won’t stop there, unfortunately they’ll happily carry on munching through all the felts, including the hammers.
The real problem is many people don’t realise they have a problem with moths until damage has already happened and that’s because
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