Caring For Your Piano

Are there any cleaning products I shouldn't use to clean my piano?

The cleaning products that you shouldn't use to clean a piano depends on the type of piano finish you have. There are really two types of finishes out there. There is a polished finish, which usually uses a polyurethane or polyester coat. Those should never be cleaned with any kind of oily substance. Any kind of wood cleaning products that have oils that are designed to seep into the wood -- those aren't going to work. They are just going to sit on top of the piano and gum up the finish. So for that type of finish actually, you would use anything that is water-based and would dissolve quickly. For wood finishes that are porous, that don't have any kind of lacquer, or polyester, polyurethane finish, you would use a wood cleaning agent like pledge for example, which would work well on any kind of porous wood. Any of the wood finishes that are not porous that the agent can't seep into, you should just stick with a simple soft rag with just a little bit of water on it to help pick up the dust. So you are not just moving the dust around, and that is really all you should need.

Is there anything I should not touch when cleaning my piano?

The parts of the piano that I would say would be off limits for cleaning would normally be trying to clean the strings. If you're not experienced with cleaning the soundboard, you should probably leave it alone. Generally, the soundboard's not going to need to be cleaned. This is because of the fact that when the piano is played, the soundboard's going to rumble and send any dust skyward anyways. If you're properly maintaining the piano and not having it in a seriously dusty environment, you won't have any dust on the strings on the soundboard. If there was ever a time you needed to clean those things, you might have a technician come out and do it for you, since they will know the proper techniques.