Key whitening - the Cutex cure!

[David Boyce]

Some may recall that a few months ago I reported on the startling whiteness 
of a third of the keys on a customer's old straight strung upright, and 
described the success of using Cutex Nail Polish Remover, the customer's 
discovery.  I surmised that it might be the acetone content. When I looked 
all around town for the same variety of Cutex, all I could find was, not the 
blue one but the pink acetone-free Cutex. I bought a bottle of another brand 
containing acetone, but had not yet had the chance to use it.

Yesterday I went to a customer who had replaced their old wrecked 
straight-strung upright with a slightly less old less wrecked similar, which 
they got for free. The keytops (celluloid) were very yellowed and, I 
thought, a good candidate to try the nail polish remover treatment. 
Naturally I had forgotten to put in the car the case with my bottle of 
other-brand nail polish remover, so I asked the owner's little girl if they 
had any.

She brought in a bottle of the pink acetone-free Cutex.  It worked superbly! 
The ease of obtaining a superb result is absolutely startling.  The nail 
polish remover definitely seems to remove a fine surface layer of molecules, 
the discoloured plastic, and get the key back down to white.  And in doing 
it, it seems to cause no damage - the "new" surface hardens immediately and 
can be gently buffed with a dry cloth and feels fine for playing.

I used kitchen towel to apply the acetone, and you need fresh clean surface 
for each key.  The work is very quick.

Interestingly, the grand-dad, who had phoned to arrange the tuning, said on 
the phone "This is a smaller piano, it only has about 50 keys", and I had 
visions of a little "yacht piano" of which there are a few in my patch.  But 
when I got there, it was a full-size 7 octave keyboard. He had only counted 
the white notes!  Admitedlly the whole piano was smaller than their last one 
however.

The customer had carefully cleaned up and polished the black casework with 
nice beeswax polish, and now with the white keytops, it looks pretty good! 
(But doesn't sound that marvellous...)

Best regards,

David.