Celluloid keytops reply

[Ken Jankura]

Date: Thursday, September 24, 1998 1:58 AM
>Subject: Celluloid keytops
>
>
>>Greetings to all ,
>>
>>I am planning to have a set of old upright keys recovered. I don't much
>care
>>for the look of the thick white plastic that is generally used, so my
>question
>>is this: Does any one know of a service that will recover keys with the old
>>style celluloid ? I believe these were also called "waterfall keys", named
>for
>>the straight lines in them. Methinks  they would look nicer on on this big
>guy
>>I'm working on.
>>
>>This is my first post to the List . Happy to be among you , and thanks in
>>advance for any  info that you might have.  :-)
>>
>>
>>Cia DiTommaso
>>
>>Waltham, MA
>>
    Hi Cia,
       A few months ago I called up Vagias Ventures, the ones that make the
replacement plastic elbows for spinets, and asked about different shades of
plastic for keytops. They were nice enough to send me two sample cards of
their product. One card has 8 full keytops of various shades and grains,
the other card has 3 shades of key heads for matching ivories, as well as
fronts and tails. I promptly ordered a bunch of ivory replacemnt heads for
those quickie repairs and ended up doing 17 ivories on one piano and I
swear, you can't tell from a few feet away (if you're not wearing your
glasses and the light is not too good :-). Anyway, the prices are
reasonable, give them a try. There are no keytops with lines, but they do
have 3 shades of grained tops, which with no glasses in bad light might
look like lines 8-)     Ken Jankura
     Vagias Ventures
     265 Prospect Street
     Baden, PA  15005-1819
     (724) 869-2842
     FAX: (724) 869-8341

P.S. I don't personally know of any covering service that uses them, call
around.