Retr0bright on keys and key restoration

[guizmo]

Hello guys,

Here’s a little topic/tutorial on retr0bright for EP keys and key restoration.
There are a lot of websites, forums, YouTube videos that talk about retr0bright and its process, so here’s some links :

On the web :

http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/Retr0Bright+Gel
https://jup8restoration.wordpress.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8uT9cgJorJPWu7ITLGo9Ww

On EP forum :

https://ep-forum.com/smf/index.php?topic=6766.msg54301;topicseen#msg54301


I recently bought a Wurlitzer 200A with yellowed keys (than my Rhodes keys). I decided to try the retr0bright process to keep the keys originals.

I decided to test on my old Roland MC500 that was a bit yellow first.
First try on keys, "ENTER" key's done (picture 1)
All the case done, before/after (picture 2)

All the work has been done with hair oxydant cream (12% H2O2, 40 vol), and a box covered inside with aluminum foils, and UV lights.

Next episode : the wurli keys. They are actually in the UV box for a tanning session ^^

[Tim Hodges]

That is much better, thanks for posting!

[guizmo]

Thank you

The wurli keys spent a night in the UV box, and now they are under the sun (picture 1), they are white now, but they still need a few hours of UVs.
While waiting I decided to polish the black keys with a green paste and then mirror, all the micro-scratches have disappeared, and now they are shinny (picture 2).

I'll polish the white keys tomorrow, so I'd like to repair the holes caused by cigarets... Do you know a substitution solution to acrylikey ?

[guizmo]

Here's the result after retr0bright and polishing on 2 wurlitzer keys.
Wurlitzer keys vs. Rhodes keys (the 2 pictures), note that the Rhodes keys are perfectly whites.

Next step, trying a white boat gelcoat to repair holes and scratches.

[guizmo]

Work done!!

Keys are white and shinny now (you can see the difference on pictures)! I've repaired the holes with boat GelCoat and it works well.
It's perfect to do shapes, it has the same white as keys, it can be polished... the unique problem is that you can see the contours of the initial hole when sanded, but I like the result.

[guizmo]

The entire piano

[Ben Bove]

WOW.  Fantastic.  Are there varying shades of whiteness across the keys or did they come out pretty uniform?  Hard to tell via pictures, but curious if they all whitened exactly the same or only minor shade differences between keys

[guizmo]

Thank you ^^.
This effect is due to the photoflash, here's others pictures zoomed or without flash.

[guizmo]

2 others

[jimbobothy]

Nice job.

[Tim Hodges]

Glad it worked out, they look amazing.

[guizmo]

Thank you

Another example of retr0bright on very yellowed mod/pitch wheels and switches.

[elihu252]

I came across this post via Google because I'm looking to do a similar treatment to my keys.   Is there any chance of damaging the wood by keeping them sealed in plastic bags with goop all day?    I was thinking of just gently brushing my keys with the solution and reapplying when they started to evaporate.

[guizmo]

The best solution is to disassemble all, like that you'll can clean well the keys.
When I made the retr0bright on my wurlitzer keys I have protected the wood parts with a tape. At the same time I put the solution on a extra wood part to see if it could be damaged, and it made nothing to the wood part.
So I'd like to say that the wood will not be damaged, but it depends on the stain, varnish...

[elihu252]

Great!  Thanks so much for doing this research and sharing it.  I'm going to try this soon and report back.

[guizmo]

You're welcome !
It worked well too on my clavinet C. The white paint on the wood was yellow and now it's white again (see the picture).