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It might also be worth plucking the tine next to your ear when you have it out (hold the assembly by the screws) that's usually a pretty good test of a tine. If it rings gloriously you'll know it.

it is possible that each time you put the harp down, you put it down in a different position, and put the strike line out. This is the sweet spot where your hammers should hit the tines. (hence when you put a tine in the spot next to it's own it will sound dull)
did you screw it down each time?

Hi Steveo, long time no chat!
we are 240V down here.
the transformers in our wurlys are different, but i've played others without this sound many times so it doesn't seem to be an australian thing.

If this where a passive rhodes i'd be putting my hands all over it trying to lower the noise by grounding it. But I'm not doing it on a wurly! i'm scared!

really? nobody has anything?

bump bump bump?

I'd really like to know the outcome of this, am having exactly the same problem.

is your harp screwed down?

the guy kept the pre-amp!? what a jerk!

zip ties!?

yep, you've figured it out.

and the screws are just wood screws.

now see if you can find out what the grommets really cost.
I think you'll be unpleasantly surprised.

there's probably no need to confirm with the multimeter, if it doesn't go BANG, then it's dead.
If you remove the pickup you will need to bridge the gap with the wires.
If you unsolder the pickup be very very careful as they really love to cook.

those high notes can be very difficult sometimes.

you may have on some of your higher tonebars a little clip. If you do, try putting it on one of the failing notes and move it up and down to see if you can get it to ring.

I'd also check that the hammer tip is hitting the tine and not the mounting of the tine.

another thing to try is to unscrew the whole tine assembly with springs, and hold it by the springs and screws next to your ear, then flick the tine with your fingernail to get it to ring. This is how you can hear if the tine is a dud, if it wont ring.
But tuning can effect this also. And some tines kinda want to be a different note sometimes, you may find if you change its pitch it will ring forever.

looks nice,
i reckon you should do the cheek blocks on the rhodes too, that will make it classy as.

I don't think it was an accident or lazyness, i've seen this on pretty much every piano i've worked on, it would be harder to get two springs around the grommet than to seperate them I reckon,
I think it's just a problem solve for poor sustain.

aw i couldn't see the link.

yupaaaaaaaaaaa,
*leans back on ratty old sofa*

OMG WIN

i had this problem once,
i think i just jammed it hard in the position opposite to the warp and left it for a couple of days. it worked.

that's a shame.

Just be happy your band know/hear the difference.

yeah 72 is wood hammers,
although it's still plastic sitting on the pedestals.

i guess if it works, it works!

ha ha yeah i've glued plenty of super glue tubes to plenty of desks.

the older older rhodes have felts on the key peds, then they switched to felt on the hammers around 76-77? then back to on the pedestals after that.

you can do a bump mod on the felt on hammers piano by putting the bump on the key pedestal and leaving the felt as is.

sometimes sticky tape over the pedestal and bump will smooth out the action also. normal sticky tape.

the guy with no felt on his piano probably has completely gouged out hammers by now. it will play worse and worse as time goes by until it's shot.

i'd imagine he would have a lot of key bounce also.

those new old stock tips would have the grooves on the bottom yes?
these grooves don't help much for the super glue, and i guess your half wood hammers wouldn't either.

after saying that, I have no suggestion for a solution.

or,  maybe wood glue?

Bjammerz, do you know when they changed?  or started changing i guess....

the tines are a different shape and you may be able to see the shape in the ebay pic, unless they are not sending what they photographed.
older tines taper off slowly, newer taper quickly.

also you can get around the sweet spot on a tine being different by changing where the hammer tip sits on the hammer forward or back.
to find the spot, unscrew your harp retaining screws and brackets,  and play the bung sounding note while moving the harp back and forth slightly, if at any time the note comes alive with tone, that's where you want the hammer tip to hit.
then pull the hammer tip off, and modify to fit
(cut a little corner if it's moving back so it can sit over the back lip of the hammer)

........

well i just spent all this time trying to see if i could see what era any of the ebay tines where,
my eyes just aren't good enough, and the pics too far away.
I guess another thing to look out for is when people sell old tine kits & cutting guides they've found, like there's one from the 80's up there now,
the ones from the 70's have old school looking cutting guides.
I'm clutching at straws i know.

holy cow, nice.

same era tines will have the same sweet spot also, will line up better for your strike line.

where are you located Paul Mulligan?

Mark 11,
SNAP!
I've also used a drill power supply on a rhodes!

I remember my uncle having an early roland electric piano, which i recall sounding similar, it had clav and piano sounds,
this sound is definitely not electromechanical I reckon.

transcribe? transcribe? transcribe and transcribe.

you're not missing hammer tips on those keys are you?

also, a clip CAN be put on all the tonebars, just go sideways.

there are only three different spring types.
yellow, black(ish) and blue,

The mk5's had different coloured springs but i haven't seen enough mk5's to know off the top of my head.

a lot of the time the colour is mostly worn off, but telling the difference is not hard.

wow I wanna pick this person's brain!
then do everything opposite!

wowzers that's high, what were they shimmed with?

do you mean like,metal washers around each pin or something?

there are supposed to be very thin paper or cardboard washers which level the keys, it's good to leave them in place cause it's a hell of a job leveling keys.

but yeah if it's like, metal washers or something, that's not right, you should just have the felt and some paper or maybe thin carboard washers.

the hammer rail is the rail of aluminium that all your hammers and dampers are screwed onto.

It's a piano out of the case job,

don't know if your piano is out of the case, but if not, to get it out,
there are four screws underneath your piano that hold it in. two on the left and two on the right big at the back and smaller at the front.
undo these,
then you can lift the piano out by grabbing the aluminium blocks that hold the harp on. ( alot easier/lighter with the harp off)

to get to the hammer rail, remove the harp, the sustain rail,  unscrew the dampers,

then you should see five big screws along the rail. unscrew these being aware that underneath the piano they bits they are screwed into may drop out.

then you need to unscrew the big blocks at each end that the harp sits on. Each has two nuts, like a man.

it is between this rail and the blocks that shims have been put many times on many a rhodes. Yours may even already have shims.

the height of the hammer rail effects action greatly, and if you're doing a bump mod it will effect it even greter-er. As the hammer needs to be sitting in the right place for the mod to feel good.

that mod will definitely make the piano easier to play, but when done wrong can take away the sensitivity of touch.

and be sure your cutting guide is printed at the correct size!

the zero tine should measure at 6 and 1/8th of an inch on the sheet.

ha I bidded on that thing!

i had another idea while nearly asleep the other night,
perhaps you could remove the felt and add a kind of thin shim sized piece of something over what's left of the key pedestal and glue it, the maybe fill the triangle space that is created with filler?

it would be an instant flat surface.

then shim the same thickness under your hammer rail and everything is back to normal.

the first thing i think is, they are just tonebar springs!!!!!

If they aren't rusty I really see no benefit in replacing them AT ALL.

I doubt a difference between new and repro ones would be noticed, except visually.

ok so maybe some or the old yellow guys will be squashed.

I can't tell you how happy I am that you actually did it,

I've been suggesting this to people again and again and it never seems to take off.

you've made my week, cheers.

oh yeah Jig sounds genuis!


can i ask where you got this rhodes?

i'd say without a doubt it's the pedestals.

step one; fix the pedestals.

restoration kits will not help until after this is done.

yeah a mk 2 top on a mk1 has a gap above the namerail.

this makes me think a mk1 top on a mk2 wouldn't be able to sit right.

yes you can totally strip the paint and polish it! i've done it!

so just to follow up and solve this one,
Josh brought the rhodes in to me and turned out to be that the hammer tips were backwards, messing up the strike line to such an extent up top that the tines wouldn't ring loud at all.

another thing is that the replacement hammer tips he purchased only had three hardness grades, wood core, hardest black and softest black.
this put soft tips in the range where they should be much harder, making it sound like a flat basketball.

i'd be worried about the condition of the underside of your hammers too.

dang.

how did it feel to play?

i reckon to fix it might be easier to cut the whole pedestal off and replace it maybe?

but you'd want it to be perfectly level on top. mmm, ergh.

70's girls are hotter than girls now.

real bits.

yes i've had rusty tines sound better than shiny tines also.

be careful though if you swap all the tines to a different piano the strike line will probably be out and they wont sound good anymore.

hangon, no it's only the corner of the square hammer tip that hits the tine.
just like the corner of the rectangular tip.

u crazy in 2009!