With all the gross dirt gone, I can now see what I'm facing over the rest of the weekend.
My client made an early decision that he wanted to save the old ivory keys rather than put in a shiny new replacement set. Aesthetically for the age of the piano I think it's the correct decision. However, after removing the first layer of dirt, it's clear that the ivories have aged unevenly. It's a larger job than I'd envisioned. They are discolored significantly and have a large number of blotchy yellow spots. My next step will be to polish out them out with diatomaceous earth to see if I can even them out. The sharps actually look pretty good -- real ebony I'm suspecting -- so I may not have to relacquer them as I'd originally thought. Lose one, gain one.
After the polishing is done 14 key tops are missing and/or damaged so I'll be able to put to good use the old ivory tops I was able to find back in September. There are also 7 key fronts that need to be removed. My plan there is to use the material from the damaged key tops, cut it to size for the fronts and replace those. Only one sharp key needs to be reglued so that's very good news. By the time I get all this done, it'll probably be Monday. Hopefully, the UPS shipment will arrive by then so I can start working on the action.
The clock is ticking on the Christmas delivery; but if I can stay focused I think I'll have it done with a week to spare! If anyone is reading this, wish me luck. :)
Stay tuned for the Sunday evening and/or Monday update.
