Keyboard: Cosmetic adjustments

I spent a lot of time in August watching the Olympics, but various little things still got accomplished on the keyboard.

Despite drilling the balance pin holes squarely and installing the pins carefully, some the of the keys ended up tilted slightly out of the horizontal, which I think is pretty much normal no matter who is making the keyboard. Correcting this was a threefold process.

First the affected keys had their balance pins tapped sideways with a hammer to bring the key surface level again. However, doing so also moved the key sideways at the same time, creating unequal gaps on either side. That meant the rack pin hole in the affected key end had to be redrilled and the rack pin relocated into the new hole. The new position was about half a hole diameter to one side, which was usually enough to correct the gaps. Sometimes the very back of the key lever ended up rubbing its neighbour after these adjustments, so the rear edge was sanded a little more to restore clearance.

In keeping with historical tradition, I scribed a fine line across the joint between key fronts and backs, and a second line about 4 mm in front of this. The second line will act as a reference point later when the edges of the key fronts are gently rounded over to this mark. These lines are not only cosmetically appealing but also serve as a fine example of our ancestors' tendency to allow construction details to remain visible in the finished product.

Fixing the sharps was a simpler process. First I temporarily laid the ebony sharp caps in playing position and, after a visual inspection, tapped balance pins as above to re-level where necessary. The side-to-side positions of the sharp levers is not that important as the sharp caps are centred at the moment of gluing, but the levers, for cosmetic appeal, shouldn't be any wider than the base of each sharp. I narrowed the sharp levers between the natural key tails by sanding the sides, checking that no wood peeked out when the sharp caps were laid in place. Resetting rack pins was thus unnecessary, and only a little sanding of the key lever ends was required to restore clearances as with the naturals.