gluing ivories

[Alan Barnard]

Understand.

Disagree. (w/qualifications)

If we are talking about a nice piano with great ivories, yes, do it right. Around here, pianos that old with teeth that good are about as common as UFO sightings.

For the many, many times we are talking clunker uprights and cheapo little grands with 88 difference ivory shades; chips, dips, and scallops; and one particularly ugly, yellowish brute that has popped off .... I say paste it on w/CA, PVC-E, chewing gum, Fixodent, or whatever will stick.

Alan Barnard
Salem, MO

----- Original message ----------------------------------------
From: "John Delacour" <JD at Pianomaker.co.uk>
To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>
Received: 9/28/2007 4:04:03 PM
Subject: Re: gluing ivories


>At 16:26 -0400 28/9/07, Willem Blees wrote:

>>You can use CA glue...


>Dear Lord please NO!!

>I do a lot of ivory replacement including covering whole keyboards in 
>recycled ivory and I use hide glue whitened with titanium dioxide 
>("titanium white", a dense white which our forefathers would have 
>been happy to have at their disposal.

>If you do a lot of this work it is worth setting up a go-bar frame, 
>but the clamps (mine are from Schaff) are pretty good if you take 
>precautions.

>If find it good if I'm doing a few or a lot to paint the glue on 
>quite thin and let it set, then paint on another coat and so on until 
>you have a good dense white covering spread very evenly on the key 
>top.  Then let it dry completely.

>When you come to stick on the ivory, moisten the glue by brushing it 
>lightly with cold water and leave it for a couple of minutes to 
>soften the glue.  In the meantime make sure the bronze clamping block 
>is perfectly clean, set everything up so that you will lose no time 
>and drop the block in very hot water for a moment or two.  Then take 
>it out very hot, quickly towel it dry and position it on the ivory 
>ready to clamp down.  Besides the main clamp it is good to use a pair 
>of light soft-jawed clamps at the sides of the key so that the ivory 
>is aligned with the sides, or a least one of them, and will not slip 
>as you tighten the bronze block down.

>That's the basic procedure I use, but their are dozens of special 
>tricks and pitfalls to ivory work and every time I do the job, though 
>it is frequently, I think of some slight improvement.  It is one of 
>the trickiest jobs in the business to get a perfect job and I just 
>wish I could have been around in the days when the ivory men were at 
>work to see exactly how they did it, though there were several 
>standard ways.

>JD