Refurbishing Old Ivory - Low Budget Method

[Farrell]

I just got done "refurbishing" a set of old ivory keys for a massive Decker
Bros. grand. The set had a bunch of missing keytops and some cracked. I told
the lady they were beyond any reasonable repair and recommended replacement
with plastic, bone or new ivory. She just about hit the roof when I said new
anything. "This is an antique piano and it must have antique keytops!"
Hmmmmm, well, because I also wanted to do the full regulation/keyboard
refurbishing, I told her I would do my best with the existing keytops and
replace those missing. I told her there would be color inconsistencies, etc.
because she did not want the tops bleached.

Anyhow, I replaced the missing ones, glued back down the loose ones, sanded
the wierd ones hard and sanded the others very, very quickly with 400 grit,
hit all of 'em with the buffer and it is amazing how nice they look
(especially if you had seen how the keys looked before). It looks very
"antique" (some previous repairs are horrid) but looks to be in decent
shape.

The bottom line is, for a job short of a proper ivory restoration, after you
get all ivory glued to the keys and trimmed, you can sand and buff the
ugly-looking set to dramatically improve appearance. It took me about four
hours for all sanding and buffing on 88 keys (did not sand sharps, but did
buff them & a little black touchup).

I'll let you know how quickly she pays her bill!   ;-)

Terry Farrell