Look, not to put too fine a point on it, but doing a surficial cleaning does not restore the sound or functionality of autoharp strings. The loss of elasticity and the change of crystal structure is far more important to the sound than some surficial dirt. Once the elastic character of the strings begins to diminish, the harmonic structure of each string shifts away from optimal and you get a rather unpleasant, dissonant sound, which tuning can not remove. If you think the instrument you are playing in the background sounds like what an autoharp should sound like, please check out my, or some other autoharpist's channel and compare the sounds of those instruments with non-degraded strings, with the old OS-21C you are playing, with degraded (but clean and shiny) strings..
I use naval jelly first to get the rust off. But I do the same exact thing, however, I use mineral spirits which is the same as w-d 40 just not in a spray can. Do you know a good method to remove rush from the pins?
I believe it was separate percussion accompaniment. When the autoharp chords fade at the end, the clacking is just as loud, even though no chords are being played.
How long to autoharp strings last? Mine seem to have lost their resiliency. I will try this method, but it looks like it only cleans them. I don't see that they will be restored.
