Ivory Keytop Cracks

[Farrell]

Hello. I will be bleaching/sanding/buffing a 70 year old ivory-clad keyboard
in the next few weeks as part of a rebuild. The ivories are in quite good
condition - will require very little work. Several of the keytops have one
small crack near the front edge of the keytop. You cannot see daylight
through the crack. You would likely not even see the crack if it were not
for the dark dirty nature of the inside edge of the cracks (you just see the
dark crack line).

What, if anything, to do? I should think this situation will lead to
additional crack development. So would it be advisable to file out the crack
to make it some nominal width (say 1/8" or 1/4" wide) and proceed to repair
it with an ivory repair product such as AcryliKey II? My goal is to simply
provide a defect-free
ivory keyboard that has good potential to last some number of years without
noticeable additional deterioration.

Terry Farrell
Piano Tuning & Service
Tampa, Florida
mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com