key duplication - partial set

[Clyde Hollinger]

Mark,

I considered Robin's response to you and I have a different opinion, although
it is *only* an opinion; she may still be right.  You mentioned the keys were
mangled beyond description, apparently by some other technician attempting to
deal with the problem.  That may have been years ago.  If the condition
hasn't changed in years, I think it is not likely to change now.  If this is
true, having replacement keys made should be a long-term repair with good
results.

As to why this problem occurred, if they were all within one or 1 1/2
octaves, I would think they got sopping wet somewhere along the line.  That
still may be the case for the bass section.  Although I have very limited
experience with keys that got wet, I seem to remember that some will skew
more than others.  It would seem that other problems would surface if this
were the case, such as swollen or missing key bushings and rusty key pins.

Now getting to your question; I don't know.  :-(  I would guess some of the
major piano suppliers (Pianotek?  Schaff?) would do this for you if they can
get enough information from the original keys to make new ones.  They may
even want you to send them the whole keyframe with the bass section keys.  I
suspect it will be pricey; get an estimate so you and the owner can decide if
it is worth the cost, if this is a mostly wornout old upright.

Regards,
Clyde Hollinger

P. S.  I seriously doubt you can blame rhinos!  <G>

bases-loaded@juno.com wrote:

> Hi List -
>
> Upon approaching a first-time customer's Ellington upright on Friday, I
> stood and stared in disbelief at the keys in the bass.  Over the phone
> she had said that her daughter was complaining about sticky keys.  What I
> saw was 10-12 keys, not consecutive, but all in the bass, that were going
> 'every which way' but straight.  They were not a little crooked, some
> were not even able to ride on their own front pin and were pushing so
> hard on their neighbors that even keys a couple notes down were
> affected... kind of like a 10-car pile-up.
>
> When I opened up the case to gain access to the keys I could see that
> some unexplainable event had taken place.  The only scenario I can
> conjure up is that at some time in the past a technician removed the keys
> for some reason and a pack of rhinoceros' just happened to stampede thru
> the room at that moment.  They were mangled beyond description, and the
> oddest efforts had been made by some cowboy to cut large triangular
> notches and glue hunks of wood into the sides of the keys to "re-route"
> them into place - quite unsuccesfully, to be sure.
>
> My question is this.... does anyone know of a service that would
> remanufacture app. 12 keys?  The rest of the keys are fine, but these 12
> are WAY beyond fixing.  Has anyone run into anything similar and found a
> successful remedy?  I have replaced the stray key here and there over the
> years, but with this many I thought it may be more feasible to farm it
> out to an operation that specializes in this kind of work.
>
> Any leads would be greatly appreciated..
>
> Mark Potter
> bases-loaded@juno.com