<html> Of course the cost of ivory replacement is commensurate with the value of the piano or at least the 'heir loom' coefficient.  A beautifully replaced ivory keyboard is truly held in the eye of the 'beholder'. An understanding of action geometry needs to be understood before replacing keytops with thicker plastic replacements. Since the plastic replacements available are thicker than the ivory which they replaced, planing the 'natural' keystick to maintain appropriate sharp height has to be considered. It's so easy to be complaisant, strive for perfection. Regards, Jon Page At 08:36 PM 11/23/2000 -0500, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite cite>Most generally a thicker keytop of either .060 or .075 or possibly .095 is used because most of the old pianos had ivory on them and plastic of a thicker variety is generally available today and is much easier to keep clean and ivory is outlawed and if available would be so costly to us as the technician that we might have to take out a second mortgage on our houses to pay for the ivory and the customer would never be willing to pay the price to recover our cost let alone make any proffit on the job. The keys themselves are cut down somewhat to compensate for the thicker keytop so that the key stop rail,  fall-board,  doesn't push them down when being opened or closed.  If you need a facility to do the work please feel to contact me for further information at Gramza@bluemoon.net Walter GramzaAt 07:40 PM 11/22/00 -0600, you wrote: >Greetings,     Had a old Ludwig UPright that needs work--+ keytops,   does >anyone replace  with the same thickness as the old stuff ? > >Sincerely, > </blockquote> <div>Jon Page,   piano technician</div> <div>Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass.</div> <div><a href="mailto:jonpage@mediaone.net" EUDORA=AUTOURL>mailto:jonpage@mediaone.net</a></div> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ </html>