<br><br> <div class="gmail_quote">On Dec 13, 2007 6:10 PM, Alan Crane <<a href="mailto:alan.crane@wichita.edu">alan.crane@wichita.edu</a>> wrote:<br> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"> <div class="Ih2E3d">At 08:53 AM 12/13/2007, you wrote:<br>>  Yesterday I had an unfortunate experience cleaning keytops. Yamaha<br></div>>C-2 about 20 years old. ... a very thin clear finish on the sharps -<br> <div class="Ih2E3d">>blistered so as to look somewhat<br>>white.<br><br></div>Fred,<br><br>This is probably way off-the-wall but...<br>In the mid-80s, about 20 years ago, I was working for the local<br>Yamaha dealer (actually on staff there). <br>Yamaha had just recently come out with their "Ivorite" keytops<br>________ wonderful feel to the plastic, supposedly a milk-based<br>formulation (at least that was the hype at the time).<br>But it wasn't too long before they began having problems with the <br>Ivorite keytops getting dirty and being impossible to clean.<br>It was a real problem for them and they even had technicians going<br>around the country replacing entire key sets under warranty with the<br>same problem cropping up again and again until... they discovered <br>that the Ivorite wasn't getting any more dirty than normal plastic<br>keytops do and it was cleaning up just fine.<br>The stuff that wasn't coming off the keytops (that everyone had<br>thought was dirt) was the stain from the black keys, a new <br>formulation which evidently wasn't as stable as it was supposed to be<br>and was being transferred to the Ivorite by the pianists fingers<br>and/or the cleaning cloth.<br>We were told that Yamaha immediately fixed the stain formulation and <br>I never doubted it since the problem went away.<br>However... I'm wondering if it isn't possible that, prior to finding<br>the "right" stain formulation, the factory didn't start spraying on a<br> clear-coat sealer in an effort to keep the problem stain on the<br>sharps where it belonged.<br>Now, this is all just daydreaming on my part and I have no evidence,<br>anecdotal or otherwise, to support it.<br>Its almost certainly not what you're dealing with... but... OTOH, the <br>stain problem was very real while it lasted... and the time frame is<br>about right...<br>Just a thought.<br><br><br><br>Regards,<br><br>Alan B. Crane,  RPT<br>School of Music<br>Wichita State University<br><font color="#888888"> <a href="mailto:alan.crane@wichita.edu">alan.crane@wichita.edu</a><br><br></font></blockquote></div> <div><br>Hi Fred,</div> <div> </div> <div>I'm not sure what caused your problem but I am fairly certain it wasn't anything to do with Alan C. <br clear="all">'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. </div> <div>My guess would be someone put something on them prior to you working on it and you discovered it with the key cleaner/polish.</div> <div>Mike<br>-- <br>People who say it can't be done, should not interrupt those of us who are doing it.<br>Michael Magness<br>Magness Piano Service<br>608-786-4404<br><a href="http://www.IFixPianos.com">www.IFixPianos.com </a><br>email <a href="mailto:mike@ifixpianos.com">mike@ifixpianos.com</a> </div>