On Dec 13, 2007 6:10 PM, Alan Crane <alan.crane at wichita.edu> wrote: > At 08:53 AM 12/13/2007, you wrote: > > Yesterday I had an unfortunate experience cleaning keytops. Yamaha > >C-2 about 20 years old. ... a very thin clear finish on the sharps - > >blistered so as to look somewhat > >white. > > Fred, > > This is probably way off-the-wall but... > In the mid-80s, about 20 years ago, I was working for the local > Yamaha dealer (actually on staff there). > Yamaha had just recently come out with their "Ivorite" keytops > ________ wonderful feel to the plastic, supposedly a milk-based > formulation (at least that was the hype at the time). > But it wasn't too long before they began having problems with the > Ivorite keytops getting dirty and being impossible to clean. > It was a real problem for them and they even had technicians going > around the country replacing entire key sets under warranty with the > same problem cropping up again and again until... they discovered > that the Ivorite wasn't getting any more dirty than normal plastic > keytops do and it was cleaning up just fine. > The stuff that wasn't coming off the keytops (that everyone had > thought was dirt) was the stain from the black keys, a new > formulation which evidently wasn't as stable as it was supposed to be > and was being transferred to the Ivorite by the pianists fingers > and/or the cleaning cloth. > We were told that Yamaha immediately fixed the stain formulation and > I never doubted it since the problem went away. > However... I'm wondering if it isn't possible that, prior to finding > the "right" stain formulation, the factory didn't start spraying on a > clear-coat sealer in an effort to keep the problem stain on the > sharps where it belonged. > Now, this is all just daydreaming on my part and I have no evidence, > anecdotal or otherwise, to support it. > Its almost certainly not what you're dealing with... but... OTOH, the > stain problem was very real while it lasted... and the time frame is > about right... > Just a thought. > > > > Regards, > > Alan B. Crane, RPT > School of Music > Wichita State University > alan.crane at wichita.edu > > Hi Fred, I'm not sure what caused your problem but I am fairly certain it wasn't anything to do with Alan C. 's rumor about a "coating" on Yamaha keys because they bleed their finish and that was the reason for the replacement of all of those natural keytops by Yamaha. I have replace 2 sets and am about to replace a 3rd and haven't heard anything about doing anything with the sharps. On a C3 from '86 a C5 from '84 and my current a C7 from '87. My guess would be someone put something on them prior to you working on it and you discovered it with the key cleaner/polish. Mike -- People who say it can't be done, should not interrupt those of us who are doing it. Michael Magness Magness Piano Service 608-786-4404 www.IFixPianos.com email mike at ifixpianos.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20071214/0153b38c/attachment.html
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