<https://forums.musicplayer.com/topic/141625-new-project-steinway/#comment-2136208>
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"Refinishing might be a little more ambitious than you think.  It's messy.  It takes a lot of space to disassemble the whole piano, store all the hinges, screws, and the various wood parts between operations.  All your work surfaces and storage racks ought to be covered with carpet scraps so you don't mess up one side while working on the other.  The correct finish is sprayed lacquer, which requires some expensive tools and a very well ventilated shop.  There's a special dolly that holds up the grand case so you can roll it around while the legs are off.   Life without that is much harder.   Because the finish is lacquer, lacquer thinner will melt it.  So there are ways to spread out and polish up the existing finish to get rid of the gator skin look.  You still have to disassemble the whole thing to do it right.  You shouldn't go over the top of the rim inside the case unless you're doing a complete rebuild.  Don't forget about all the cloth parts, like the cloth along the bottom of the fallboard, the guides for the music desk, the little cloth bushings and felt bumpers in the music desk and in the pedal lyre.  Fallboard decal or brass inlay?  If it's a decal, you either need a replacement or you do need to polish up the fallboard without disturbing it.   It's not impossible, but don't underestimate how much work is involved.  If it's something you were thinking of doing in your living room, that's impossible.   If you're very lucky, you might clear up a lot of your stickiness with a good squirt of CPL (center pin lubricant), a mysterious liquid supply houses sell that evaporates harmlessly.  Clean the action with dry soft paint brushes, shop vac and compressed air first so you don't wash the dust into the wood and cloth parts.  Less humid weather will help some, as will playing on it, if that's tolerable.   If CPL doesn't free things up, the next step is to very gently work the part by hand with very gentle sideways pressure.  If that doesn't do it, the next step is to heat the center pin very slightly with a soldering iron being very careful not to overdo it.  This always does the trick.  When you hold a hammer by its flange and swing it like a pendulum from about 60 degrees, you ought to get about one and a half full swings.   Tick tock tick.  Too much is bad.  Too little is bad.  Any side to side motion is bad.    Key easing isn't so bad for an experienced hand.  Easing each set of action centers can be time consuming.  Especially if you have to do them all.  What looks like sluggish dampers might just be sluggish keys holding them up.  You have to get the action out, get the top action off of the key frame, and check the keys, dampers, hammers, wippens, jacks, and repetition levers individually to really know what's binding.  Often, easing the keys and the hammer flanges is all that's required.   If the dampers fall freely and damp the string, that's good, because you don't want to mess with them at all if you don't have to.  Getting even damper lift is about the hardest thing to get right in action regulation, and being a shade out of spec isn't going to make that much difference if the pedal lifts them evenly, they work well, and the rest of the action is well regulated.   That should shave a few bucks off your regulation bill.   I'd try to get the action eased up, the flange screws snugged up. the buzzes silenced, and get it tuned first.  That'll make it playable and put you in a better position to contemplate regulation and refinishing options.     "
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