Key repair

[Roger Jolly]

Hi Larry,
              I've done a couple of sets, as you discribe, as follows.
The one area that these type of butchers don't seem to touch is the bottom
of the key, keep this in your mind for reference.
  Strip the tops and fronts of the key covering material, we then router
the top of the key to compensate for the thickness of ivory or older style
plastic covering. It's about .030" for Ivory, and .015" for the older
synthetics.  (Rough rule of thumb)  The reason for mentioning this, is that
this quality of worker, will not resurface the keys. An educated guest will
give you an idea if Ivory was the original covering material.
  Use a router table and fence, remove the least amount of material from
each side of the key as possible. Iron on some thermo glue backed veneer,
with a clothes iron. Clamp in a vice whilst ironing the next key.
 Trim the veneer with a sharp exacto knife.
 It is now worth making sure all FR pins are square with the frame with a
machinist square. Put all the keys back in the piano aand recheck the
travel of the keys. It is some times possible to make some corrections for
spacing before gluing on the keytops. Mark any keys that you want to correct.
 Reglue the molded tops and fronts.
If you are very carefull in measureing the width of the new keytops, and
you are carefull on how much of the side of the key that you take off, you
will end up with nice tight key spacing as in modern instruments.
 To get the key notch perfect, fit the highest and lowest notch to the
sharps, remove all sharps. Clamp a 48" steel straight edge with small C
clamps to line the extreme sharp notches.  Use a small/fine safety file to
cut the notches, using the straight edge as a guide.
Safety file has NO teeth on the sides. If you know a good machinist, have
him grind off the teeth of a regular file, it's a smoother finish than the
one's that I have seen in the tool stores.
This procedure will give you a perfect corner.
If the keys are a little too thick, trim the excess carefully on a disc
sander with 120 grit paper.
The veneer is availiable in rolls, 1/32" thick, I use Birch because it is
tight grained and white.
We have done quite a number of partial keybeds, due to finger nail under
pinning of the keytop material.
Hope this helps.
Roger


At 08:52 PM 17/06/99 -0700, you wrote:
>I just performed a service call on an upright piano that had been
>"rebuilt" by one of our local butchers.  Poor regulation, un-even key
>level, bad hammer shaping, key rebushing by replacing one or two here or
>there as the mood moved him and a butcher's job of recovering keys. 
>(Although a real butcher probably could have done a better job of it.)
>
>Now to the subject of my post.  Rebuilding the sides of keys that over
>the years or though poor recovering.  
>
>I don't think that I've seen anyting on this in the Journal.  I have
>suggested it as a class at our Arizona State PTG Seminar (which is
>usually the first weekend in January).   I don't think that there is
>anyone in our chapter profecient in this skill.  
>
>Anyone out there care to share on this topic?
>
>Larry Messerly RPT
>Phoenix/Prescott
>A Real "Bald-one"
>  
>
>
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Roger Jolly
Baldwin Yamaha Piano Centre
Saskatoon and Regina
Saskatchewan, Canada.
306-665-0213
Fax 652-0505