bleaching ivories: E-Z

[R Moody]

There are two considerations of bleaching ivories-----on and off the keys.
I have tried the peroxide and sunlight method with little result.  The
ivories can't be wet too long or they come off the keys.

Last week I took time to bleach some old ivory heads.
With ivories off the keys and cleaned up of old glue, I got amazing results
with liquid laundry bleach.  Some of these ivories had been soaked in a roof
leak and then something lay on top of them apparently because the back half
of many of the heads was brown while the front half was yellow.  After 4
days in bleach (it was a little weak like half water and bleach) the ivories
were back to normal. I am not saying they have to be in that long, maybe two
or three days is enough.
    I have never had them curl while in the water.  Maybe bow a little but
after 3 days they are pretty soaked through and very flexible.  I dry them
in a towel and set them on a oven rack (outside the oven) so both sides are
exposed to air.  If you lay wet ivories on a table or towel to dry some will
warp. I let them dry this way 12 hours at least .
I was so impressed by this bleach treatment that I will do the rest of these
ivories that I thought were stained beyond redemption.  Photos soon
available on  www.pnotec.com/pics

Richard Moody
                            "I prefer the errors of enthusiasm to the
indifference of wisdom."
                                                    Anatole France
(1844-1924); French writer







  List

  I remember a thread about bleaching ivories a few months back and my time
came this week to try it.  Three ivories were missing on the piano and going
to my stock of old ivories I could find only 4 or 5 that were long enough.
Unfortunately, they were really yellow and didn't match their prospective
neighbors in the least.

  There was discussion on the thread about sunlight and peroxide and it
seemed to be a pretty complicated procedure.  Having nothing to lose but one
old ivory...

  I filled a cup with some laundry bleach and threw in one of the keys.
Twenty minutes later it was a perfect white.  So, I threw in the other two
and they also turned white, but unfortunately I left them in too long and
they warped into a shallow U shape.  I put them side by side on the bench,
laid my aluminum ruler on top of them, and put my bowling ball on top of
that.  (I had to set a book next to the bowling ball to keep it from rolling
off the bench.)

  End result: three perfectly matching white ivories.  Whomsoever said that
laundry bleach wouldn't work: not true!

  Tom Sivak
  Chicago