How to make a piano keyboard

Step 9 Gluing the natural keytops

Audsley and M. W., who gave instructions for gluing on the natural keytops, suggested attaching them at this stage. Audsley recommended using single pieces of ivory for each key if the keyboard will be played often, adding that their greater cost will be offset somewhat by their more easy application, and he described the more difficult process using separate pieces for the wide and narrow parts of the naturals. Since they're hard they work sort of like guides for sawing. Sheets of plastic or veneer can be stuck on at this stage as well.

I used some two piece ivories I removed from a set of keys someone gave me from an old German upright they took apart. They were all chipped and discolored, many were worn thin and a bunch had been deeply scratched. I ended up with just enough usable ones for 29 keys. I think a lot of people would have thrown them away.

I bleached them and jointed all four edges square and to the right size, which also removed the chips and marks from fitting, but I wanted to keep the existing surfaces so I had to sort them by color and thickness so the matches aren't perfect and it looks like an old keyboard instead of a new one. M. W. suggested reserving the lightest colored ones for the treble but didn't say why. After bleaching the ivory it was kind of translucent so I bleached the front part of the key plank. The freshly mixed hide glue I used dries clear (and doesn't smell bad) so I added whiting to it, too.

I clamped an aluminum straight edge to butt the back ends of the front parts of the naturals because it won't stick to the keyplank as a wooden one. Audsley instructed then to apply the glue and then put the ivory heads in place and butted against the straight edge, and to clamp them down with a large heated metal bar covered as a clamping caul with a piece of cloth to protect the ivory, but my used ivories were all different thicknesses so I used individual cauls. These are tapered and made with a lip so that they draw the heads against the straightedge, and they let me see how each one lined up so I can make adjustments to their positions while the glue isn't set. I wiped off as much of the glue underneath on the front as I could while it was gummy.

Once the glue dried I used a fine square file to join the back edges because I thought the suggested skew plane might make them chip.

The tail pieces have to be carefully jointed before they're attached, and ensure a good joint Audsley described drilling small pilot holes into the key at their far ends so they can each be tacked in place with a tapered peg before clamping them the same way as the heads but mine were too small and short for this to work reliably. I glued them using individual cauls as well, and I used a gang of cams strung on a rod to clamp them because I only have a few clamps with a very long reach.

Most of the excess glue was easy to remove with a damp cloth, but I had to soak a few and a couple got too wet so the glue at the edges re-gelled and the ivory cupped so I had to reheat and clamp them again later, but since I did the pairs it compensated for the small height differences at the joints.

I jointed and rounded the fronts and radiussed the corners slightly with a fine three-square file.

If the keys weren't so varied in length I would have drawn a dark angled line across the width of the keyplank or numbered each key so I couldn't jumble them later.