Wednesday, July 15, 2009

How To Make The Sun Shine

So what is a piano technician to do when the sun is needed to bleach a set of ivory keytops and it's been cloudy and rainy for weeks?

I received a set of keys from another technician that needed a lot of ivory repair. More than I usually take on. This meant that several stains would have to be removed and the replacement ivories bleached to match the existing ivory. No sun was in sight to aid in the peroxide bleaching process.

I decided to splurge and invest in stronger peroxide (actually it was rather inexpensive) and two, four foot black lights (pricey). The UV from the lights, suspended a few inches above the keys, works like strong sunshine.

Here's the set up.And just because I invested the time and money to set this up, the sun has been out every day since!

Thanks, Murphy.

2 comments:

Bernard said...

My "beady eye" detects two groups of (F# Ab Bb) together on the top end of that keyboard. Or have you just laid them out in any order? Are the octaves interchangeable or is each key numbered to reflect its position?
You see...I do look at your posts :)

deb said...

Very observant! Yes, there is a 'goof' in layout due to repeated pulling out to re-peroxide the odd, off colored key and not paying attention to the numbering when putting back under the lamps. None are interchangeable, not a one. The order is corrected when the keys are repacked for shipping.