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On the keys with the longest damper arms (usually the last 2 octaves on a 73 key), the longer damper arms limit the upward travel of the hammers so they never get to the point where they can severely overshoot- the hammer rebounds off the damper arm and bounces back.  That is why you hear that loud click sound on the upper keys.

On the lower keys, since the harp is not in place, and the damper arms are shorter (only slightly in the midrange, but they are enough shorter), the hammers can and will overshoot and can get stuck beyond stop-lock.

This would happen whether or not you have the bump mod installed.  The bump, when properly placed, should be out of the way of the hammer cam by the time stop-lock is reached.  All the bump does is lighten the action and makes the piano easier to play because the hammer pivots on a smaller area of contact with the pedestal.

You are basically chasing a 'problem' that isn't real.  When you put the harp back onto your piano, the hammers will rebound off the tines and enter stop-lock- they will never be able to travel up as far as they do in your video without the harp in place.

Right, I'm pretty sure the behavior will go away when I put on the harp. I think what is causing the variation in behavior might be the slight variance in the length of the damper arm due to the angles being adjusted. Some keys seem to be getting blocked while others are not. I guess checking final travel w/ the bump shouldn't be done with a hard hammer strike, but rather a softer blow.

Those hammers in the upper range are hitting the longer damper arms and rebounding off of them. Actuate the full travel of a low hammer and high hammer slowly using your hand (not by depressing a key) and you will see what is going on.

Good luck!

I see the damper arm behavior you're talking about, but I don't understand how that translates into the pedestal "jumping" behavior. If the damper arm is in fact causing this behavior, are you saying that it is normal for the hammers to lift off the pedestal as shown in the video above?

My concern is that when I apply the Miracle Mod to the highest key, it seems to "lock" the pedestal in place no matter how hard I hit the key, but when I install in on my lowest key, I cannot get that same behavior. One of the two keys is not behaving correctly, unless the keys are suppose to behave differently.

If hammer behavior based on the damper arm length, then I should be able to predict where the behavior changes based on damper arm length, but that's not what is happening. The damper arms and hammer behavior do not correlate. Only about the highest octave or so seem have the hammers laying flat on hard blows, while the damper arm length is the same for almost all of keyboard (Save the lowest octave or so).

Am I mistaken in thinking that a goal of the Miracle Mod is to make the hammers behave uniformly on all pedestals?

The "overshoot" is only caused by the fact that the harp is not in place.  It is perfectly normal for the hammers to move in the way you show.  If the harp were in place, the tines would limit the upper travel limit of the hammers.  That's the whole point of the action--it propels the hammers into the tines, at which point the hammers should then bounce off the tines, hopefully to stay in check until the key is released.

Well then, the inverse question comes to mind, as the upper keys on my Rhodes are not "overshooting" off the pedestal. They lay flat on the pedestal at the end of their swing, no matter how hard I strike. What is causing them to not strike up as hard?

Video comparing the two behaviors:

https://youtu.be/mGzz1FqevMQ

The bridle straps need to be adjusted so that when the key is at rest, and the dampers are touching the tines, the straps are loose, and would allow about 1/8" (3 mm) further upward movement of the hammer tips before being tight.  That will allow good damping, and also cause the dampers to be pulled sufficiently away from the tines so as not to contact the tines on a hard blow, when the key is down.  These adjustments are more critical at the bass end, where the tines swing in such a wide arc.

The bridle straps do not prevent the hammer from swinging, nor is it their purpose

That was my thought too, but no one on the forum can come up with a solution to my "overshooting" problem, and when I pull up on the dampers (creating more tension on the bridle straps) the hammer that aren't behaving correctly suddenly behave correctly. See this video for a short example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=QnoZBnWYthA

If the bridle straps are not meant to do this, then can you suggest what part of the piano needs to be adjusted to prevent the hammer overshoot shown in this video?

(Just to be clear, the lowest key's felt is loose as I was adjusting the position of the miracle mod bump. the loose felt has no effect on this issue, and most of my other keys with felt that hasn't been touched exhibit the same behavior)

Well, looks like I may have caused a new issue when adjusting my damper arms. I have another thread here (Miracle Mod Install Problem) and it turns out that my bridle straps may not be tight enough to keep the hammers from over swinging.

Any thoughts on ensuring proper tension on the straps would be appreciated. I'm trying to install the miracle mod, but all but the highest octave of my key hammers are "overshooting", or jumping off the pedestal, instead of locking into place where the miracle mod bump is placed.

Well, I flipped all the felts and punchings, so that the felt is on top now. Didn't solve my issue. I also did a quick test to see if height was an issue, by removing punchings and eventually everything between the key and the balance rail. No effect.

However, I was able to get it to stop happening if I pulled up on the bridle strap. My current theory is that the straps aren't being pulled tight enough by the damper arms. Does anyone have any thoughts on how to ensure I have proper tension on the bridle straps? I did spend a lot of time adjusting my damper arms to relieve an issue I was having with choking notes and notes not being dampened quickly enough. Maybe I've now created an issue with the strap tension?

EDIT: here's a video of me showing the problem, then pulling up on the damper arm to create more tension on the bridle strap, causing the problem to go away. Is this correct, or is there some other adjustment that needs to be made to address this "overshooting"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=QnoZBnWYthA

Yes, the balance rail is what allows the "teeter totter" movement of the keys. The rail at the front is just called the front rail.

You should be able to get balance rail "punchings" on eBay. These are the paper "washers" that go UNDER the felt washers. You probably need some green and pink punchings. The different colors represent different thicknesses. I rarely use the super thin tissue paper like punchings. (White) and I also rarely use the thick cardboard punchings.

I ordered punchings from VV a while ago and I spent quite a while with my punchings to getting everything even, but I may need to adjust them further.

One thing I noticed is that my felts have always been under the punchings (even before I started working on it). Is it possible that some years (mine is a 1973) put the felt under the paper washers instead of on top of them??

You may have possibly answered your own question in a previous post. Since the keys that work better are sitting up higher than the keys that don't work as well, what happens if you raise the lower keys at the balance rail to match the height of the better working keys in the treble?

Yeah, it's not a 1:1 on the higher keys, but this is an interesting idea! Is the balance rail the piece of wood with the pins on it that's underneath the keys at the mid point?

The much greater escapement in the bass definitely affects the hammer's ability to lock in, as you call it.  IMO, the Rhodes' simplified action works quite well toward the treble end of the piano and much less successfully toward the bass end.

Unfortunately all of my keys except for the highest 20 keys or so are behaving with this "overshoot". Do you know of any way to adjust the escapement (or other adjustments) to match it to the higher keys? I don't have the harp or harp supports in place, and I'm stumped about what is causing the difference in behavior between keys here. They all look the same to me.

You ideally want all the keys to behave like the treble one in your video.

And I was just asking if the key dip on the higher keys is blocked out by the key hitting the green felt on keypins nearest to the player.

When depressed the key is about 5/32" above the key pin felt closest to the player. Of course aftertouch can have the key touching the felt.

Could it be an issue with key dip? I think 3/8" is the spec. If the key is dipping too far maybe that could cause overshooting. Do the front rail felts block the keys that don't overshoot?

Key dip is currently 3/8ths across the entire keyboard. The highest keys are measuring 1/32 or so taller than the rest of the keys, but the change happens gradually from key 54. The height difference doesn't seem to be matching the hammer behavior, as that change happens immediately from key 65. Also visually the height looks dead on, but it could be something that isn't noticeable by the eye.

Also, just to be clear, the higher hammer locking into place is the correct behavior for all hammers, yes? Or should all hammers jump and stick in an upward position when hit hard?

EDIT: I'm not sure what you mean by "Do the front rail felts block the keys that don't overshoot?". What are the front rail felts and what part of the key would they be blocking?

Well the highest keys are not designed differently than the lower. The only difference in keys & hammers would be in the hammer tips which would not have anything to do with the action/ stop/lock situation.

The mod is on the bass keys and not on the treble, correct? I think your mod may be too far forward,therefore not really doing much.

Can you see the video now?

The mod is present on both the highest key and lowest key. The lack of "locking" is present on most of the keys, with just a handful of the highest keys locking into place no matter how hard I hit. This is despite the fact that there is no miracle mod on the rest of the keys, so something is going on before the miracle mod is installed.

FWIW, I agree that the mod on the lowest key is too far foward. I was moving it to different positions and this is the last position I had it in.

I can't watch the video to see what is happening. I d/l the google app to watch it but it wants to access ALL of my photos in order to use it and there is no way that is going to happen. Can you u/l the video a different way? Or send it to Cormac to do?

Try this:

https://youtu.be/mGzz1FqevMQ

Key 65 and lower exhibit the overshooting behavior of the lowest note in the video. 66 and above lock into place like the highest note in the video.

Is this by design?

Does anyone have any info on the different behavior of the hammers shown in the video? Can everyone see the video link okay???

Basically, you need to adjust the position of the lower bump/felt until it performs correctly; once you find this placement and the note behaves like the high note you like the feel of, do the same for a couple of notes in the midrange. Then remove the felt you have glued down to test out the bumps, and draw a line with a straight edge between all the bumps. Then you should get the correct placement across the keybed. As the keybeds aren't cut perfectly you often get variance where the bump should be placed as you go from lower to higher keys. My 2 cents.

I think I need clarification on what you mean by "performs correctly". I'm unsure which key is performing correctly, but I did move the pedestal bump both as far forward as it could go, and also farther back, just to check. There was no change in this "overshooting" behavior. A

Additionally, I see that many of my highest keys do not exhibit the "overshooting" behavior, and most of the rest of my keys do. And this is without the bump present. Seems to me this may not be related at all to the miracle mod.

There must be some other factor causing some keys to do this, and others to not do this. Could they have designed the higher key hammers to behave different like this?

So the miracle mod will address the issue in the video with the lower notes "overshooting"? Is the higher note in the video the correct behavior for all keys if I'm trying to get the lightest action possible?

I've noticed while setting the correct position for the pedestal bump that my highest key and lowest key are not behaving the same way.

The highest key stops and "locks" into position no matter how hard I hit it. The lowest key on the other hand, only stops and locks loosely when played with moderate force. Harder key strikes has the hammer moving much farther up. It's like that for a lot of my lower keys.

Is there away to adjust this so all hammers respond uniformly, or is this something built into the design of the Rhodes? I want to make sure I don't need to make further adjustments before installing the mod.

Here is a video of the issue:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Vwo8sDxSSH5TU2Fq7

Thanks for the measurements. I was able to get the correct distances by removing the shim from underneath the high end harp support, but leaving a shim under the low end harp support.

As far as the metal clicking, I discovered the problem: the "stem" of some of the dampers are somehow smacking into the sustain bar based on their curvature. By curving them down a little bit at the base, the metal clacking goes away. Now I'm free to adjust the dampers without that additional issue creeping into play.

So it turns out that there is some high pitched chirping at the end of some notes in the amp. It's just not the same sound as the physical bouncing of the hammers and dampers.

I'm finding it difficult to find a good position for the dampers that doesn't either cause the tine to touch them on hard hits, or doesn't dampen quickly enough to avoid a blurring or chirping at the end of the note.

Could this be a side effect of me having cut the wrong ends of my side blocks?

I've since shimmed them, but I'm starting to wonder if variation of this height could somehow be effecting the dampers "sweet spot" and making it harder to place them correctly.

Does the sound chirp even through an amplifier? Rhodes are mechanically noisy, and maybe the noise is more related to the hammers bouncing on key release (which you don't get so much if you just move the hammers without pressing the keys). The miracle mod definitely made my hammers quieter on release. Also, installing the miracle mod might actually have an effect on the escapement, in which case you'll probably have to adjust the escapement again afterward.

The chirp doesn't play through the amp, but it does translate into a slurring of the dampening of the note. Where it should normally cut off cleanly there is a blurry decay of the note.

Do you think I should proceed by doing the miracle mod and then coming back around to escapement/harp height? I thought they suggested that escapement should be done before the mod, but I could be mis-remembering.

I finally got some time to work on this again.

So I tried adjusting the tension of the arms. You're assessment seems to be correct... it does appear to be the damper felts bouncing as they try to dampen the tine. There is no glue or hardness to the felt tips. I tried adjusting the tension on the arms at the base, sort of creating an overall curved shape to them, as show in this first video. They all appear to have the same tension, at least from the base.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/7uTUMsvoXGSDTuc39

When I shim up the harp, it seems to get worse, but going back to normal height doesn't seem to solve the problem and i'm not sure how to lower the harp fruther with the weird black shims on the bass side. I'm not even sure if I'd want to. Most likely the adjustment needs to be made on each individual damper.

Also worth nothing the sort of frog "ribbit" sound seems to be moving around from key to key. It seems like finding a spot where the damper arm is not doing it, but still actually muting the tine is pretty difficult. It seems to be a very small target. Any further advice?

Here's another example of the ribbit/bounce, though less metallic than before:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/BWfCTjGexmTi9SM2A

Here's a picture of the damper arms as they are currently shaped:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Htzh3uRrhrpKnTBU7

I'm trying to finish setting up my Stage 73 to prepare it for the VV Miracle Mod, but I've run into a strange issue while adjusting escapement.

I'm trying to get as soft a touch as I can, while also not choking the hard notes, but now some of my notes are making strange noises when I hit them hard and then release them. Here's a video:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/L76Z1dVuy9JaEUFP2

If I lift and drop the hammer with my finger, the noise doesn't happen. It only happens when I actually play the key and then release. It also doesn't happen if I pull the damper down and release.

The last adjustment I made was to shave some of the height off of the side blocks that hold the harp and damper rail on. (as referenced in this video: https://youtu.be/hSvOh8oMIUw?t=189 )
Unfortunately I did shave the bottom part instead of the top, so I may need to shim the bottom and do it again to the top. The only complication here is that there is some kind of weird black material on one block acting as a shim, but it's glued on (there are two layers of it).

Any suggestions on how to address this?