Dear Bob, There's a very simple solution (pardon the pun) to this problem. Go to your local office supply store, or any store that makes rubber stamps, and buy a bottle of "Ink Reactivator." I suppose there are different brands available on the market. The one I use is the "Aero" brand (catalogue no. 1250). Just wet a small area of your rag with this solution, and wipe the damaged keytops. This solution dissolves the dried marker pen ink instantly, and while it's wet, you could wipe it off easily, as though the ink was never on the keytops. It also works nicely for the red lines you sometimes see on keytops. These red lines are often found in the treble section of the keyboard, and they're caused by women (girls) doing glissando on the keyboard, when their nail polish comes off, leaving red steaks. Your Ink Reactivator will take them off immediately. It works like magic, and I always carry a small bottle in my tool case just for this purpose. This stuff evaporates quickly, so a glass bottle would work better than a plastic one. It also works well with ball point pen ink. One thing you may want to watch out for is that, while the Ink Reactivator dissolves dried ink for easy removal, it sometimes would begin to dissolve the plastic in a certain kind of keytops. Look for a keytop that begins to soften and appear dull as you rub with the solution. This is a sign that the Ink Reactivator is actually melting the plastic. If that's the case, wipe very lightly and quickly--just enough to get rid of the ink marks, and quit before the plastic begins to soften. Do this one keytop at a time. This kind of keytops are sometimes used on older pianos, and they have a slightly yellowish color to them. The newer kinds of keytops, which are very white and shiny (like those used on Steinways), do not have this problem. If the marker ink is on real ivories, Ink Reactivator won't work, because the ink has already sunken into the pores of the ivories beyond the reach of the wiping action on the surface. In case Ink Reactivator is called by some other name in your area, just ask the rubber stamp store for the chemical that removes ink from rubber stamps (as in undoing a mistake when a rubber stamp is stamped in the wrong place and one needs to start over.) This stuff is fairly expensive. The 4 oz. bottle I bought cost me over $12.00, but when you need it, nothing else works as well. But a small bottle lasts a long time. Good luck! Yat-Lam Hong RptBob1@AOL.COM wrote: > Hi List: > Had a distraught customer just contact me regarding her 1 year old running a > magic marker across about ten ivories on her gorgeous Steinway. What have > any of you used to remove said problem? (it might be a "highlight" pen > instead of magic marker). > I told her I would present this "to the world"- and she was impressed (i > hope). Will see her piano on Friday. Thanks in advance. > > Bob Bergantino,RPT > Willoughby Hills, Ohio
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