Finishing ivories

[Stéphane Collin]

Dear list,

I am pretty proud of my latest ivory tops cleaning, bleaching, gluing, 
shaping and buffing job.  Though, I would like to get closer to expert 
professionnal result.  At the end, the ivories look quite nice, but 
there are still some scratches visible (not tangible) in it.  Who could 
help me imporve my process ?  Here it is :

I unglue the existing ivories with a damp cloth, an iron and a sharp 
knife.  Works fine, without damaging the wood.
I put the ivories in boiling water with detergent, to get them rid of 
glue and other dirtynesses.  Works very good, as long as you control the 
timing.
I rince them and dry them in an oven at medium low temperature, watching 
for the moment they start to curl, and then turn them around, and watch 
again until the moment they are flat again.  Great.
I put them under an UV neon light and spray some 30% oxygenated water on 
them, now and then.  After one day and one night, they look white enough 
for me.
I glue them back on the keys with cement and solid copper clamps 
(difficult : the ivories tend to move on the key when pressed in the 
clamps, even when and the ivories and the wood is carved).
I shape the length and the curves with a 400 grit sandpaper glued to a 
straight piece of wood.  This works fine.
I sand the ivory surface with 240 grit paper, to try and make a good 
level joint between the two pieces of ivory on the key.  This doesn't 
work well : you can still feel the joint even after huge sanding.  I 
stop sanding before I get the feeling that I am going too far, that is, 
removing too much stuff and gettind clearly destructive.  Yet you still 
feel the joint.  No good.  (Ideas ?)
I sand down the grits until 800.  Here: ok but ivory surface seems to 
tend not to be perfectly plane, so not all the surface gets sanded.  
Again, should I sand that much that everything is plane ?
I then use a cotton buffing wheel with finishing composition, at fairly 
high speed.  This gives some gloss, but there appear and remain 
scratches that you can hardly feel but clearly see when looking at the 
keys in front of daylight.
I feel my results are good but inferior to dedicated professionnal 
ones.  Is there a chance that I could improve my skill on this ?

Thanks for any idea.

Stéphane Collin.