---------- > From: PNOTNR@aol.com > To: pianotech@byu.edu > Subject: bone keytops > Date: Thursday, January 23, 1997 1:16 PM > > Quite a while back, I saved the name of Nelson Woodworking, ( 601 West Main > Road, Little Compton, RI 02837. tel. 401-635-4733) as a source for bone > keytop material. I have a customer who really wants to save her ivory > keytops, but they are way beyond saving. I'd like to know if anyone here has > used the bone material for keytops. Yes, I have, but it's been about 7 or 8 years. > My questions are: > > Is this comparable to plastic from a price standpoint? (I haven't called > Nelson Woodworking yet) No, it's more expensive and more difficult to do, so the total job should run the customer perhaps 3 times the cost of a plastic job. > Is the material hard to work with? More so than plastic, but probably no more than Ivory. It machines well with a router, and can be sanded and buffed quite readily. > Does it look reasonably like ivory? It has a tan color, rather than the slightly yellow cast of Ivory. The grain is rather fine, but you have to watch carefully for pores in the finished material - usually one side buffs very smooth, and the other side has pinholes in it. The end result feels (to the pianist) essentially the same as ivory, with perhaps a little more texture and absorbency than new, fine ivory, depending on how you buff it. > Do any of the people who sell key recovering jobs use the bone material? I don't know of any, but I've never asked. If Nelson will supply one piece tops it is MUCH easier to do the job, but the last time I bought a set of keytops he couldn't supply one piece sets - I had to match heads and tails. The bone is much thicker than ivory, and the finished product looks quite beautiful and sort of antique-ey. I understand many harpsichord builders use bone - you might try looking at a harpsichord list or newsgroup. I've heard these exist, but I've never read them. Don Mannino RPT
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