My first Rhodes, my first post...

[69mk1]

Hi everyone.

A few months ago I was given a fender rhodes as a gift.  I've been lurking since then and reading as much as I can from here and the super site, and now here's my first post.

Sorry if these are obvious questions, this is my first rhodes.

There's only one stamp that I can see and it's on the lower right of the tone bar panel above the serial number plate and patent info.  "3569".  So week 35 of 1969?  FWIW, the serial number is "73fp201i".

It's a "seventy-three" , and I believe its a stage piano because it's case has the threaded mounts for the angled legs and center rod.  The thing that's confusing me is that it has holes and markings where the large 4-pin connector, plus treble/bass and vibrato stacked controls have been removed from the front panel.  So it's had a preamp at some stage.  Would that mean a super satelite conversion?  There's no effects loop jacks.  Or was there a 73 key suitcase model, and perhaps my case is not original?

It's in playable condition, but missing a few parts - the lid, the legs, the sustain pedal.  It's also had some pretty amateur work done on it.  Although I've never worked on a rhodes, I'm a luthier and audio electronics tech, so I'm looking forward to getting my hands dirty. 

I've done the basics of getting the dead notes speaking (one had a piece of pencil eraser for a hammer!) and tuning her, and I've even done a couple of gigs and recording sessions. 

I made a simple sustain pedal with some scrap timber and the rod from an old music stand.  It had a single scratchy volume control and output jack so I replaced these and also added the old passive bass-cut tone control.  The timber strip under the control panel had been installed upside-down (felt-side up!) so it was pretty clunky to play at first!

I'm trying to decide just how far to take the restoration.  I'm not sure I want a museum piece.  It certainly needs a few hammers and all the dampers replaced.  I'm sure I'll find more internal parts that need some love as I explore further.  I can easily make another lid from ply wood, and for the moment I'm happy to use a regular keyboard stand. 

Here in Australia it's not that easy to find parts, but with some digging, I've found a local engineering supply that has various grades of felt.  I guess I'll be going overseas for hammers, grommets etc. 

Any comments welcome!

[Student Rhodes]

Sounds like a '69 piano with a swapped name rail.

What kind of hammers does it have?  If it's a 69, I believe it's early enough that it would have felt, tear drop-shaped hammers.  If not, it would have hybrid wood/plastic hammers with square felt hammer tips.

A piano this early would also have tone bars with only a single twist on the lower end.

The gold foil sticker on the bottom right of the harp will also have either "suitcase" or "stage model" embossed in it.  If it says suitcase, someone may have swapped the piano, or harp, and put it in a stage model shell. 

A lot of changes often happen to these pianos after 45 years.   With such an early model making its way to Australia, there's no telling what its history may be.

[69mk1]

Thanks for the reply!

Here are some shots of her.

The bottom of the case has had its rear leg mounts ripped off for some reason.  Perhaps it was a "suitcase conversion".  Or a satellite conversion and the owner used the speakers instead of front legs.  The scars were covered by some very old gaffer tape.  (The white stuff is the left over tape adhesive.)  And as you can see the left front one has been replaced by a timber off-cut.

The holes in the name rail were filled by me when I first got her so I could wire the new jack and passive controls.  As I mentioned, there's no effects loop jacks, and there's no holes in the rail for them behind the name plate either.  I'm planning to make a preamp with stereo tremolo to install here.  It will have stacked controls like the originals.  If this is some rare original whatever, I won't drill extra holes for the stereo outputs and extra pots or switches, but it sounds like she's been hacked around a fair bit already, so a few extra holes won't matter.

As you can see the hammers are wood/plastic.  The hammer tips don't look original to me because there's quite a layer of super glue under each one, by the looks.  Plus I found a couple of felt blocks in the case.  I assumed they were old damper felts, although none were missing.  I guess they could have been hammer tips, if this is what the early ones had. 

Well I doubt I'll restore her to original condition then.  Unless you guys think this is some really rare collector's piece or something.  I'd think felt hammers would sound pretty average compared to the classic mark 1/rubber tips sound.

[69mk1]

PS:  even with the minimal work I've done to get her going and in tune, she sounds really, really nice.  I can't wait to hear her with new tips and felts, plus a proper session of tine and pickup regulation...

[Student Rhodes]

I'm not certain, but these look very much like aftermarket tips.  I know for a while Fender color coded their tips, but that was early on when they converted to neoprene cubes.  However your tips have the angled cut that Rhodes changed to after the conversion to all plastic hammers in the late 70s.  I believe most aftermarket tips have had the angled cut such as yours.

Early hybrid hammers had an extra tang on the head where the felt cube sat.  However it was standard procedure to clip one of them off to accommodate the new, larger neoprene tips.  See the attached picture. 

Unless the latches on your case have been replaced, I'd put your shell somewhere between 73 and 75.  Before 73, Fender was using the smaller luggage style latches.  Your piano has two pair of later style latches, however by the mid-70s, pianos came with only two latches on the lid, rather than four. 

Your keys are Pratt-Reads with the one piece key top, which were phased out by 74.  A more precise dating of your keys would come from looking at your key pedestals.  In addition to your date stamp, the angled cut on the corners of your harp, and the single twist steel tone bars are consistent with a 69.

Perhaps you have a 69 piano stuffed in a early 70s Stage Model shell, with an early 70s Suitcase name rail.  It's also possible it was a Stage Model that was set up for Satellite speakers. I'm not sure how early in the Mk1 production that option was offered. And we cannot rule out the possibility that I don't know what I'm talking about.

[Ben Bove]

I actually just picked up a late 69 suitcase piano, similar to this one.  They're low enough in production numbers, I've only seen a handful of them.  I haven't had a chance to mill over it for a while but will throw a couple things out there.  Ray had some good points.

My gut on this one is that it's a '69 suitcase top conversion - just because someone went to great lengths to try to figure out how to craft home made leg pieces with the wood flanges and all that stuff (they don't appear to be original cuts and protrude from the case rather than being recessed, like the center brace plate for example).  Either someone bought it without the cabinet so needed to rig something up, or someone didn't want to bring the cabinet to gigs and tried to make a stage.  The only reason it may be an original '69 case is because the latches do look like late style latches, but they're backwards - the latching piece is supposed to be on the lid and the striker on the piano - here they're flipped so someone probably replaced them with some aftermarket pieces.  If you took one off, you might find some old screw holes underneath it from the original latches.

You can also measure the front height of the case to see if it's a suitcase or stage piano - with stages, they reinforced the bottom to withstand the leg flanges.  2" for a suitcase, 2.5" for a stage:

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The lid looks like a higher-profile plastic lid similar to that first production run era, so that's consistent.  Ray I think is right that they're some sort of aftermarket tips because the original colored tips were completely dyed throughout, not just on the top - and correct they didn't have an angled cut.  This was originally a felt hammer tip piano.

The super satellite wasn't released until I believe 1972.  They function with the same usage of the 4-pin preamp cable though, so if it were that model there wouldn't be a reason to strip the preamp controls - it probably was someone again taking a suitcase top and turning it into a standard stage passive controls.

You can tell if those felt blocks you found in the case are hammertips or not by the hardness - if you can't squeeze them then they're hammer tips - they were hard to sustain impact.  The damper felts are much more squishable to the touch.

[69mk1]

The mystery deepens!

Thanks for the info guys, I really appreciate it.

Well that lip at the front of the case is only 2 inches.  But there's no extra holes under the latches.  The screws of the latches are certainly not original.  They are zinc plated flat head screws that don't really sit well in the latch countersinks.   So they've been removed at some stage.  If they've been returned upside-down, then I'd think the screw holes would line up with the original two, and simply an extra would have been added.  Oh, and the corners are plastic.

Could this actually just have been a lid that's been modified to work as a base?

As for the hammers, well if they were originally like the ones in the pic studentrhodes posted, then they've been modified very well.  Even as a luthier, I can see little evidence of that little rearward ledge having been removed.  IOW, if they were modified, they were done by an accomplished wood worker.   The tips OTOH have certainly been replaced by an amature.  They are all slightly crooked and there's plenty of glue smeared around and some are only perching there on a lump of glue and making little or no contact with the timber hammer.

Well I had a little squeeze on the felt I found.  It seems pretty firm and has no groove in it at all, like all the dampers...

I'll try and grab a few more shots of these details tomorrow.

[Student Rhodes]

Quintessential FrankenRhodes.

Based on the two inch lip measurement, it seems you have a Suitcase shell/box.  Which would mean the bottom of your shell, on which your keybed sits is something like 3/16" or perhaps 1/4" thick, no?  Strangely, my '69 has a lip of an inch and three quarters at best.  Ben, what about yours?

Clearer pictures might reveal the holes where the sphinx guides may have been at one time.   There'd be four of them, two of which would have fit in the cups on top of the Suitcase cabinet, but as I've said, I can't tell what you have going on in that respect. 
(I can't recall if they usually exist in the same position on a Stage model)

The hinges if they exist, could reveal more details of the shell's age.  Mine, which is from around the same date as yours has the "blade" type of hinges that I believe were also on the Sparkletop models.
It's also interesting the bottom of your piano doesn't seem to have the two larger screws that I believe hold the support blocks in place

Your keys caps are consistent with a '69, but I'd need to see the pedestal to be sure.  However your hammers are not from '69.  If the heads haven't been clipped, then they'd be from some time after 1970, when the hammers were modified to receive neoprene tips. 

Your name rail could be from 1969, as it doesn't have the effects loop holes.  Is you logo metal, or plastic?  The metal logos have "INC." under the word "Fender" rather than the copyright circle, as found on later pianos.  Is your red felt attached to aluminum rail, or a 1/2" strip of wood screwed to the rail?  The wood strip came earlier.
Ray