The customer just wanted the basics done (new strings, hammers, dampers, cleaning, etc.).  They didn’t want new key tops, even though these have very noticeable chips in them.  Some people just like keeping that original ivory look – that’s cool with me.  I love the feel of ivory when I’m playing, especially clean ivories!  So I took some extra time and clean all the keys up including the wood (which will never really even been seen except for here in this blog post and by future piano technicians! 🙂

So it’s these details that make piano rebuilding fun:

Here’s a little closer view:

And then a close-ish view of the key top buffing job we do (again the key tops still obviously have chips, but they are clean!):