I am presently preparing a previously bleached piano case for its
second refinishing.  The first refinisher did a sloppy job, by stripping
the case with the hardware still mounted, letting the stripper drizzle
down the inside of the case, etc.  He then stained the whole piano with
a heavy coat of Colonial Maple pigment stain, and shot it with what
looks like one coat of Deft.

However, I'll give him credit for one thing-- whatever he used to bleach
the wood was phenomenal.  The places he didn't want to strip and bleach
-- like the control strip where the levers and buttons are mounted on
the keybed, and the legs under the keybed where they and the matching
trim is mounted with screws, I have tried everything to get this oxblood
red dye stain off the wood, to no avail.  I can get about 75% of it out,
but what stays behind is, I'm afraid, going to show through any other
dye stains I use.

Here is a list of what I have used so far, in several applications
of each, and in combination with each other.

Star Co.'s professional two-part bleach, oxalic acid crystals and hot
water in a saturated solution scrubbed in with a stiff brush,  Deck
bleach (which is just sodium hydroxide and a few other things), TSP
crystals and hot water, made into a super-saturated solution, also
combined with Sodium hydroxide deck wash, and ordinary Clorox in
combination with the other things, after they didn't work very well.

Whatever it was that was used initially on this piano was amazing.
Where the stripper or stripper/bleach had just dripped and run, the
color was completely gone.  No scrubbing was even needed to completely
remove it.  And yet, on those same places where I need to remove the
residue, I cannot get it off with today's products.  There must be a
simple solution somewhere, because the first refinisher put no effort
into this at all.

Does anybody have a suggestion to use something other than what I have
so far wasted an entire day on?  None of these products even come close
to matching the product used originally.  What will bleach wood, like
darkened soundboards, is still ineffective for this dye stain (dark red
sap stain and indigo black combination ).

Craig Brougher