When we last talked about the keys, they had been removed from the key bed and were sitting on top of the piano lid (minus the lid, but who's counting). Not cleaned, not polished, not anything,
Now that the felts and pad were done (sort of, time will tell), it was time to turn attention to the keys themselves... Can't put filthy keys on top of a cleaned key bed and renovated - kind of - felts and pads. Can you?
I can't.
But at this point it started to really dawn on me, what I was doing. The further you invest yourself in things like cleaning the bed, spending multiple weeks and multiple efforts in trying to do the best you can for the felts and pads (still hasn't hit me there are REAL sites where you can buy these), and now trying to figure out how to clean the keys - the less likely you are to just rip the guts out and throw in some electronic counterpart. You spend time and effort up front and you're not just going to throw it away.
But that was just starting to dawn on me. The more immediate task was how to clean these keys...
So I started looking online - finally - to see what procedures one would use to clean ivory keys safely.
The short answer is - there isn't one.
Ivory is like tooth enamel. You can't use soap, detergents, Ajax, or any other abrasive to clean ivory - you'll ruin it. Look it up.
What I did find is that you might use a baking soda-based toothpaste - mixed with milk, because water will damage the keys - to do this.
You can use an eraser - or something close.
You can buy a scraper that takes a thin layer of ivory shaving off of each key at every stroke.
You might also use one of the Mr. Clean pads.
In extreme cases, where the dirt is caked on, you might use steel wool - no more abrasive than 000 grade - to clean the keys. And this is not advised, since it scratches the surface.
After considering all the options, and looking at the dirt-grimed keys, I chose the latter. Let the howling, screaming, and gnashing of teeth begin. I'll say it up front - I don't care about the yellow patina (I like the yellow patina, I want the yellow patina), I don't want the grimy dirty layer on top of the yellow patina. And no web post I could find, besides the scraper and steel wool posts, could tell me how to do that.
So I went with steel wool. After all, I want this to be a functional piece, not necessarily a museum piece. But still, to be safe, I went with the 0000 grade, the finest I could find.
The results were amazing. It took three passes, and I'm not done yet - I think Mr. Clean may get a final shot at some of the really bad stains - but check this sequence out:
Now, I still have a lovely yellow patina, and I still have stains. And I probably have scratched the ivory to some degree - but not any that I can visibly see. What I don't have is the dirt and grime on the Ivory and/or the wooden part of the keys.
We are now almost caught up to real time and I still have one more round with the keys before I'm satisfied.
But... What exactly is this being done for? If I replace the felts and pads, clean the keys, clean out the entire interior... What does that buy me? A really clean piano shell that looks good and won't hold a tune? That's the high probability. And yet, with so much work already into this and not even having started working on the exterior casing - do you see how insidious my brain can be at times - how can I possibly consider losing all this and just dropping in an electronic keyboard.
The obvious answer... I can't. Not unless it's the last resort. And this is where the real investigative work starts.
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