Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Opus IV: Saving the keyboard

Having allowed the waterlogged keyboard and frame to dry out for a month, it appears that I will be able, after all, to rebuild it.
The walnut keytops have been removed, numbered, and prepped for regluing, and the keylevers appear to have suffered less damage than I had previously thought, save for some staining at the balance points, the result of the balance pins having rusted.
I have polished the guide and balance pins, rebuilt a slightly warped keyframe, and have begun the process of regluing the natural keytops onto the keylevers.
The prospect of building an entirely new keyboard was, to say the least, demoralizing, however, I am quite optimistic that I will be able to resurrect the original keyboard, a tedious, yet far less time consuming task than building a new one from scratch.