Pianotech

Greetings Lists,

A hundred year old piano with what look to be an early vintage of plastic replacement keytops has said keytops separating from the keysticks at the front of the keys. Naturals cannot be leveled without first addressing this issue.

 When replacing non-ivory keytops, my go-to sticky stuff has always been PVC-E glue. What glue(s) have you successfully used to re-attach the separating keytops in situations like this?

Thanks,

Alan

 I recently re-attached all of the ivory heads on a grand piano using the heads that the owner had stored I used a latex based key ntop cement item 8E01032 I purchased from New Octave Global I have also used Elmers multi purpose Glue-All as well as PVC-E glue In an emergency I used the only glue I had with me which was System 6000 clear gel.

make sure you scrape the old glue/residue off the keystick and the keytop. I put the glue on the keystick and spread it with a silicon glue brush and then slide the keytop from the front butting it against the tail piece. You can use painters tape to hold the keytops down however I just pressed down for a minute so the head would bond. I have 20 or so key clamps but decided not to use them because the ivory was old and brittle 

Of course you can heat up your glue pot and use hot hide glue. I have used cold hide glue as well but make sure the date is still current on the bottom of the bottle

Greetings Lists,

A hundred year old piano with what look to be an early vintage of plastic replacement keytops has said keytops separating from the keysticks at the front of the keys. Naturals cannot be leveled without first addressing this issue.

 When replacing non-ivory keytops, my go-to sticky stuff has always been PVC-E glue. What glue(s) have you successfully used to re-attach the separating keytops in situations like this?

Thanks,

Alan