Painted keys

[Barrie Heaton]

dEAR jERE,

The easiest and safest way to do it, is scrape the paint off with a very
sharp blade.  I use Stanley blades that's a trade mark name for a
particular type of disposalable blade used in the U.K.   You probably
have a different name for them in the U.S.  rough description a pyramid
with the top cut off.  I use one blade for about six keys and through
the blade away.  The reason for this is, the edge of the blade becomes
jagged and you will scour small grooves in to your ivory and make life
harder later on.  Once the paint is removed sand the ivories down using
a finer coarse paper until a smooth as a babys bottom.  Buff them up on
a buffing wheel with soap.

I would place the individual keys in a vice for the scraping.  To speed
the job up.... If you make a key tray, that is a piece of hard board
with a half inch lip all the way round large enough to take a full set
of keys.  Remove the sharps and put them to one side.  With your keys in
your key tray you can use an electric sander to speed the job up.
However, it is better to do the finial sanding by hand.  The other
advantage of having a key tray is you can move things off your bench
and stack them on racks quickly.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Barrie.


In article <199702030511.XAA09098@minot.ndak.net>, jere fryett
<jfryett@minot.ndak.net> writes
>Dear list,
>
>I have been lurking on this list for several months now and have learned a
>great deal.  In June I retired from 35yrs. of teaching music in the schools.
>Anticipating life after retirement, I have been taking the Randy Potter
>course and I am nearing its completion.
>
>I was given an old piano the other day (Strohber #138301) and it will be
>invaluable for me to learn more about repair.  It has everything wrong with
>it that you could imagine, i.e., loose pins, cracked bass bridge, broken
>flanges, etc..  The thing that disturbs me the most is the keys.  They are
>the original ivory and seem to be in good shape other than they are a bit
>yellow.  Someone in their wisdom did some cosmetic surgery and painted them
>white!  My question is, is there a way to remove the paint?  I can chip some
>of it off but not all.  I really would like to preserve these keys.
>
>Thank you for your suggestions in advance.
>
>Jere Fryett
>jfryett@minot.ndak.net
>
>





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Barrie Heaton                                  |  Be Environmentally Friendly
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