Hello MMD. I have received at least half a dozen responses to my
warped key enquiry, for which I am appropriately grateful. Here is
what I did.
I had a 'phone call from Rick Alabaster, a restorer I know in Melbourne
(which is about a one-hour flight from Hobart). He suggested I use the
steam from a cappuccino maker. This presented some difficulties,
because we don't have one, but during our conversation I remembered
that I do have a steam gun (a Sunbeam 1000 watt Eco Jet).
I made a jig out of a piece of chipboard with three dowels inserted
into it so that they stuck up like pegs. They held the first key in
the final shape I needed. I removed the key and gave the rear end
seven or eight minutes of steaming. I kept the steam away from the
balance rail button, the capstan at the end, and from my fingers.
When I figured the key had received enough steam (well, I guessed that,
actually), I put the key onto the chipboard, between the pegs, and
clamped it down at both ends, to guard against warping. I didn't touch
it until it was dried out. It seems to have worked well -- the capstan
now sits properly under the sticker, and the key does not rub against
its neighbours.
Regards from John Phillips in Hobart, Tasmania
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