Hi Ed---
Wonderful guitar you've built there. Sounds wonderful too! Reminding
us all, perhaps, that 'amateur' means 'lover', and not 'bungler'.
Proud to know the Minches; gam in OlyWA/USA
How horrible it is to have so many people killed!---And what a blessing one
cares for none of them!
Jane Austen
On Sunday, January 10, 2021, 05:50:42 PM PST, Ed Minch
wrote:
Ivory has been used on guitars for a long time and in fact Martin (big, old,
good guitar maker Jeff) used some real ivory until the 1980’s. When it is thin
like a piano key, I have seen red paint in the recess before the ivory and it
gives it a nice color.
I just copied a Martin from pre-civil war times and put a faux ivory bridge on
it - the original would have been covered in ivory stuff. It is redwood and
maple where the originals would have been spruce and maple. All of the other
white-ish strips are what is called Ivoroid. This is a very early plastic made
from the residue of photography chemicals - the oldest plastic was this stuff in
1858 (??)Many piano keys were made of this starting in the 1870’s.
I love this instrument - Click left and right, text below, and my daughter
plays a little tune on the last frame:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/50356331877/in/album-72157678301955987/
Ed Minch
> On Jan 10, 2021, at 8:15 PM, Claudio DeLorenzi wrote:
>
> I have used the recovered Piano key ivory as inlet markers for pairs of
winding sticks ( and various other tiny projects). The ivory veneers are
usually just a few mm thick and have great color ( but I’m sure many synthetic
materials the luthiers use would work just as well, so it is not irreplaceable).
Although it may be sinful to slaughter elephants for new ivory, I’m conflicted
about governments that insist on destroying even ancient ivory objects on the
principle that only a complete ivory ban will stop poaching. I understand it,
but I will still save old piano keys whenever I can (most of the more recent
ones are all synthetic). It seems the greater sin to put old pianos in the
landfill. Upcycle, reuse, and repurpose I say. Maybe it is wrong? The older I
get, the less certain I am...
> Cheers
> Claudio
>
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