Keytop Materials

[Tim Keenan & Rebecca Counts]

Z! and List:

Z! Reinhardt wrote:
>  I suspect that this is cellulose.  (Yes, I
> hear many of you suggesting that I touch the stuff with a lit match to see
> how well it burns...)

I think you mean Celluloid, which is a trade name for one of the first 
plastics invented, also known as Pyralin. It is made of nitrocellulose 
(also known as gun cotton) mixed with camphor, and often mixed with Zinc 
oxide, magnesium carbonate, or urea to reduce its flammability and 
tendency to spontaneous combustion.  Originally movie film was made of 
celluloid, and it was a real fire hazard.

> Is there anything out there that looks like, perhaps even acts like this
> stuff?  Does anyone know where this stuff can be obtained?

Hard to say without seeing it.  How thick is it?  I obtained some 
replacement plastic heads which are a grained, ivory-look plastic, from 
Pianophile in Brossard, PQ.  They are a pretty good match for a 
medium-coloured old ivory keyboard. 


> One last note -- to give the keys "that ivory look," the keytop material
> was cut into separate heads and tails, rather than in one-piece tops.

I suspect that this has more to do with the manufacturing processes at 
the time they were made.  The stuff was likely rolled out in sheets and 
cut, rather than moulded.

Tim Keenan
Terrace BC