Soaking ivory in vinegar.

So..... If this works on bone, wouldn't it be a good candidate for stabilizing and there fore bringing back some of the rididness of the piece?
 
Although this thread is now nearly 15 years old, when a person does a search on the terms "bend" and "ivory", it is the second result to show up via Google! And so I am posting a response.

I am here to share what has NOT worked for bending ivory: soaking a piece in hot water for 20 minutes. The Google search result just BEFORE this one is to a silversmith's page (https://www.silversmithing.com/1ivory.htm): "When you need to bend ivory as when applying violin bow tips you just toss them into hot tap water for 20 minutes and then set them in a press to dry in shape." I have now tried this with not just tap but borderline boiling water for over an hour with very thin veneer pieces of ivory (piano key tops) and every time I have tried to do this and then bend the piece into a curve using a clamp the piece has bent eeeeever so little and then broken. I don't know what the guy in THAT post was talking about, but hot water does very little to make ivory more flexible. I am now going to try the vinegar soak and see what results *I* get with THAT!
 
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