Grinding Ivory Keytops
By Jan Kijlstra
In the MMD (27 Jan 97) John A. Tuttle wrote about grinding ivory keytops. Here is an alternative for that method.
In my younger days I worked at an old-fashioned piano shop, where I learned a lot about restoring old pianos. We restored them thoroughly, and as a result we were able to offer the customer a pre-war German brand piano at a post-war price.
The advantage was that the customer got a better piano for his money, especially regarding the quality of the sound (larger soundboard, longer bass strings, and so on) . We often stripped the piano completely and rebuilt it from scratch, including the mechanics. Remember, in those days wages were still low. Nowadays that kind of operation has become unprofitable.
We also restored the keyboard . Many times we had to get rid of the ivory -- too many pieces missing, too much damage. But we also, many times, could complete an old keyboard from our stock of old ivory keyboard salvage. What we never did was grind the ivory!
There is a better way to get the ivory in a better shape: clean it, removing the dirt from the surface, by scratching carefully with a knife, if necessary.
Bleach it with hydrogen-peroxide (30% -- put gloves on!) in the sunlight. You will have to repeat this two or three times. After bleaching all you have to do is to polish the ivory again. The results will surprise you.
Jan Kijlstra
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(Message sent Tue 28 Jan 1997, 23:34:40 GMT, from time zone GMT.) |
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