The general meeting for this month will be held on Tuesday, January 8, 2013 starting at 7 p.m. at:

This month's technical class will be by our friend Bill Maguire from the Long Island-Suffolk Chapter.

Most piano technicians look to avoid anything more than replacing a few ivory heads. If the job is more involved than replacing a just a few ivory heads (or repairing them if they do that), most piano technicians might tell the client, "these" ivories" are too far gone and I "have" to replace them with a set of new plastic keytops . They might tell their client "it is not cost effective to restore the ivory key board, and I don't recommend it." The avoidance of ivory work is so pervasive, that ivory keyboards on fine antique and vintage pianos (even those which are ornate with "exotic wood") often have their ivory keytops condemned just for needing 10 or fewer ivory heads repaired and or changed. And often the ivory work which is done, is often done badly.

1. How to increase your collection of ivory heads,
2. How to sort ivory heads to make ideal head replacements much faster and easier
3. What adhesives (installation methods) are best to use for different situations
4. An easier, just as good if not better, less expensive, less "fumey" alternative to polyester resin for repairing chipped heads.
5. How to quickly and easily remove ivory heads without damaging them as opposed to destroying perfectly good ivory heads with a router mounted in a quality router table and fence that is square to that router table (method I prefer as opposed to using table saws and drill press planes to plane keys) during the planing process in order to install thicker plastic tops.
6. Much more

I am a second generation piano technician from Greenlawn Suffolk County. I am 47 years old, with 29+ years experience. I was in the PTG and Suffolk LI chapter for 20 years. I primarily restore pianos and do miscellaneous "niche" repairs. I had a feature article published in the PTG Journal on repinning (larger tuning pins and loose tuning pin solutions) in the January 2001 issue (with many others planned). I was one of MANY mentored by the late, great Joe Sciortino, and had the privilege of sharing a booth selling piano and player piano tools at the Providence, RI convention with him as well. Joe also helped me innovate some great player piano tools, and Mark Haas demonstrated them at several PTG conventions.

William Maguire

The Executive Committee will meet prior to the general meeting at 5 p.m. at the Carle Place Diner, on the northeast corner of Old Country Road and Glen Cove Road.

Annual reminder: It is now winter, and you should try to remember to remove your glues from your car overnight during the cold season. Constant freeze-thaw cycles can reduce the bonding properties and effectiveness of most adhesives (especially carpenter's wood glues such as Tite-Bond, PVC-E, etc.). And there is also the added inconvenience of trying to make a repair with a glue that is frozen solid or so thick that it will not flow. If you read Pianotek's recent online newsletter, they indicated that they will not sell or ship any glues during the winter for this very reason.