gluing ivories

[John Delacour]

At 16:28 -0500 28/9/07, Alan Barnard wrote:

>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.

They're around.  Not long ago I bought an 1870 or so piano that the 
seller promised me had ivory keys and I bought it, for about nothing, 
at a distance on that understanding.  When it arrived it not only had 
moulded plastic keys but the removing of the original ivory had been 
done very roughly and most of the woods underneath had been damaged. 
I waited, and eventually another piano of the same make and about 
1880 came up for next to nothing 250 miles away.  This arrived in 
very good tune and sounding so sweet that is was a shame to break it, 
but that's what I'd bought it for.  The ivory was "12-cut" (thick, as 
opposed to the usual 16-cut or 20-cut) and hardly worn.  It has 
bleached up perfectly, the first keyboard is repaired and coated with 
glue ready for the donor set.  It's a labour of love, to be sure, but 
extremely satisfying, to restore seriously a piano that most people 
would have burned.  Two other 190x pianos I've bought recently, in 
pretty worn-out condition otherwise, had almost perfect ivory.  I 
have decided to have one good piano I have recovered in sheet plastic 
because it had had a bad recover job done on it, but nowadays I aim 
to buy only pianos with good ivory or at least half of them good.  I 
can recover the bad ones with the pile of ivory I amassed in the days 
when I thought nothing of recovering in perspex or celluloid.

"In the field", where I very rarely am, except the field surrounding 
my workshop, things are different of course but there's no reason not 
to do a good job if it's possible.  I  was recently asked by a London 
colleague to inspect an Ibach grand locally.  The ivory was good but 
the fall had been damaged and refitted so that it snagged the front 
of the ivories.  One of them pulled off.  I told the owner it was not 
serious and asked for some Scotch tape, damped the key and taped the 
ivory tight round the top and sides, telling her how to remove the 
tape the next day and let me know if there were any problems.  There 
weren't.

JD