Hello, all,
What a lot of good ideas! We have tried most of them now, and here’s what we found:
The biggest lesson is that every case could be different, depending on the plastic keytop material and the marker type. We tried several brands of Dry-Erase markers we had around the house, and then after reading Fred’s post, also Magic Marker or Sharpie. As I said earlier, the “right” kind of Dry Erase marker came off with a swipe of plain water. On the stubborn marks, we had already tried several kinds of alcohol, Windex, soap and water, and naphtha (which is no longer available in California, so we tried both naphtha we had on hand plus its new substitute),
We tried many products, and everything that worked either dulled or mildly scratched the shiny surface, so buffing will be required.
After thinking about Kevin’s post, I said “What the heck? It’s just a spare keytop.” So I tried a quick swipe of pure acetone, and it worked instantly. I was surprised how little it melted the surface, I guess it just didn’t have time. The surface only had minor dulling, and we buffed it back to a shine with toothpaste on a rag. I’ll check later to see if any acetone effects continue, but it seems to be done. I know that fingernail polish remover is acetone, but it also has added oils, fragrance and color, so I don’t know how it would work relative to pure acetone.
We tried the Mr. Clean magic eraser (foam bar) and it worked too. It left just a little duller, more abraded spot, and was slightly harder to buff back to a shine.
The Goof-Off also worked instantly, as Fred said, on both Dry Erase and Sharpie, and only dulled the surface without pitting. We tried buffing with Flitz on one end of the keytop and toothpaste on the other end. Both worked to bring back a shine. At least toothpaste is readily available almost everywhere you are, maybe in an emergency situation. Its mild abrasive content may vary depending on whether it’s a “whitening” toothpaste!
Also we tried to remember that we’re working on a shiny perfect new (spare) blank, and the average piano in use will have very slight scratching and normal wear on the keytops. So it may not be too hard to bring the look of the key back to match the others. This particular child put big dots on the keys, not swipes or long marks, so chances are pretty fair for a full recovery. It was on 6 or 8 keys, not the whole set. Whew!
We also thought of the cleaner in spray bottles that we’ve seen for cleaning dry-erase marker boards, but we didn’t have any here. It would be worth a try too.
Thanks for all the ideas. We learned a lot this morning about keytop materials and markers!
Kathy
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There is a cleaner made for cleaning dry erase white boards. I don't know what the active ingredient is but it may be worth looking into!
Chris