Larry Lobel wrote:

> Craig Brougher's and Gary Rasmussen's advice about ivory cement is
> of great interest to me.  I want very much to "do it the right way,"
> and I've tried using the cloth wafers impregnated with ivory cement
> for re-gluing original ivories, but find it very difficult to get good
> results.

Thank you for the interest in what I had to say.  I am curious as to what
exactly you are trying to do.  Is this a 'make it look like new'
restoration or is it just a make it look better than it does now with all
of those missing keytops?   I don't think I have ever replaced 25 ivories
on one piano, at least not when I didn't have any of the originals!

Many times, when I was just making a good practice piano out of an old
upright (not necessarily a player), I wanted to make the keys look as
good as possible but it wasn't worth replacing them.  When a lot of key
tops were missing, and I was lucky, I would find many of them, not broken
or chipped, in the piano.  By studying them VERY closely, I could usually
determine which ivory went to which key.

If the original white key cloth was intact, I could usually clean it up
by scraping with a knife as others have described.  Only then, If
everything is clean, white and matched, I might glue these with the thick
super glue. (CA glue that many others discussed.) I have also played with
various concoctions of glue mixed with white paint as described by John
Tuttle but not nearly as much as he has.  If the original white cloth was
not intact, I usually took it down to the wood and used a wafer as I
described before.

One comment here, I think most of the keytops I replaced and probably
many of what John described involved re-gluing the ORIGINAL ivories.  I'm
afraid that no matter how good of job you do doing it the 'right' way,
unless the ivories are matched well, for grain, color, thickness, or even
where the tail piece originally touched the front, you probably are not
going to be pleased with the results.

A few years ago, I rebuilt a Steck Duo Art grand for my parents.  My
mother is an accomplished pianist so this piano was to be her hand
playing piano as well as their player piano.  She REALLY wanted the keys
to remain ivory because of their superior feel, over plastic.  (Yamaha
now has a man made material that they use on their better grands that has
this same ivory feel.)

The keys on this piano were GROSSLY yellow.  I don't think I have seen
many pianos this bad.  Not only was the color gross, it wasn't even, it
was blotchy.  The only saving grace was that they were all there the
there were only three keytops that were broken or chipped.  I tried
everything to whiten them.  I finally ended up sanding them down with
coarse, then finer and finer sandpaper, then buff them out.

In order to find three replacement keytops that would look good, I'll bet
I went through HUNDREDS of keytops before I found three that would match
the keyboard well.  I glued them using the wafers and we were very
pleased with the final results.  But, I'll bet I spent MANY TIMES more
hours on this keyboard making it look good than I would have, replacing
it.  But it was worth it because it was for my mother!  If it wasn't for
her, this piano would have received a new set of plastic keytops.

If you are missing 25, and you don't have a good portion of them, AND you
don't have several times that number to pick from, I would probably just
replace them with new plastic keytops.  It will be much less work, and
you'll be more pleased with the results.

As far as keeping ivories straight when gluing with wafers, yes, I have
glued a few that slid under the clamp, even after I thought the clamps
were tight and I thought everything would stay put until the glue set.  I
usually could tell if the keytop was on straight on the sides by looking
and feeling.  I just keep checking and checking it as it is setting up to
make sure it didn't shift.  The problem I sometimes still have is keeping
the front tight to the tail piece.

Usually, the tailpiece is in place and you are gluing on the front.  In
this situation, when I apply the clamp pressure, (either by C clamp or
spring clamp) I angle the clamp slightly so that the keytop front is
forced toward the tail piece.  Of course, the keytop needs to match and
be perfectly clean in the mating joint as well as the glue surface.

Gary Rasmussen
GRasmus140.com