Collection: Ivory and Keyboard Restoration

At Shackleford Pianos, we specialise in ivory piano key top and full keyboard restorations.

We work on both Ivory and Manmade Key top materials daily, and are experts in bringing back that pristine colour that you expect to see from a premium piano. We offer full replacements of key tops with brand new precision made synthetic key tops. 

As for Ivory specific restorations, we preserve and restore this precious material to it's former glory and only replace missing or damaged key tops using recycled ivory or mammoth ivory following CITES guidelines.

Shackleford Pianos restores chipped and discoloured piano ivory keys to their original glory and replaces missing ivory key tops using recycled ivory. 

Ivory is beautiful to look at and beautiful to touch. It is easy to work with yet is very hard wearing. Man has always thought of it as valuable and it is for these reasons that ivory has been the material chosen to produce the key tops for prestigious piano makers for the last 200 years.

Humans have been using ivory since prehistoric times. The quality and artistry found in many ivory artefacts show that it has always been a material of significant iconic value. All civilisations that had access to ivory used the medium to create items that were and still are valued as much as pieces made from using any other precious materials.

Conversely, many modern pianists actually prefer the touch and feel of more modern synthetic keytops, of which we will install on any piano should you request it.

The types of synthetic key tops we will apply to your piano should you request it are: 

Plastic

Plastic Key tops provide a smooth, hardwearing and attractive glossy finish, it is the most common key top surface you will find on any modern piano, ranging from Yamaha to Steinway 

Resin

Resin Key tops provide the same hardwearing finish as plastic, but provide a very attractive and unique appearance, with layers of slightly different toned shades of whites and subtle tones interweaved to create an appearance similar to ivory and its natural grain structure, but simultaneously it's own unique beauty. 

Ivorite

Ivorite key tops succeed at creating a touch that is almost identical to ivory, and provides a very pleasing surface to touch and play on, that shares almost all the positives that ivory might have over standard plastic keys. It's appearance is has a subdued grain structure and very mild texture 

Mineral

Elforyn

Acryl

pictured: a previous plastic key top restoration, as well as re-finished black keys

Plastic key tops can also be restored, so to as Ivory, in which the keys will be completely re-finished by carefully and evenly sanding back the original material by a few millimetres to remove any impurities or inconsistencies, and are then meticulously buffed back up to their original lustrous finish 

in addition to the Natural Keys (white keys), we also will fully restore, or replace Sharp Keys (Black keys) too!

Our Sharp Key restorations can be completely either one of two ways, we can fill, repair and re-spray your sharp keys to either a matte or glossy finish. 

Alternatively we can replace the original Ebony wood keys with new, modern plastic ones, this is sometimes the only feasible option when the keys get too worn down after years of use.