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I don't know whether this has been addressed elsewhere...
I assume this is what Rhodes had in mind for the recess in the harp cover.

I own an MK II.
The repair manual says nothing about the setup of the Damper Release Bar w.r.t. the individual dampers (i.e. the metal strips).
This is how I assume the damper system should be set up. Can anyone confirm/correct my view?

1. The front edge felt of the Release Bar should slightly press on the damper strips when the Release Bar is in its resting position. But not so much that the bar causes any lifting of the damper felts.
2. The wooden dowel's resting position should be high enough so that there is no gap between the dowel's top felt and the back of the release bar. To achieve this, the pivot point of the dowel should be "shimmed" (e.g. with additional felt) or the top end could be shimmed. Goal is: When the dowel is sitting in its resting position, the Release Bar position is as described in (1).
3. The adjustable push rod between the pedal and the dowel should be adjusted in such a way that the push rod just touches the dowel and there is no free play between the push rod and the dowel.
4. The resting position of the pedal should be at its upper stop.

Is this correct?

I noticed that when setting up the system in this way, I need to shim the gap between the Release Bar and the dowel by about 5 mm. Also, full pedal travel (until the floor is hit) makes the dampers move a lot further compared to damper movement caused by key depression only (being ca. 12-10 mm then).
Do people actually put something under the pedal to limit travel? Or is my setup completely off?

Thank you.
Gebhard

EDIT: I have to revise some information.
I found two pictures on the VV website of their own Rhodes design. Those pictures show a gap of 2-3 mm between the Damper release bar (felt) and the damper metal strips. So I copied this setup to my own Mk II.
I guess the intention is that one should be slightly pressing the pedal just so that the release bar touches the damper strips. You can actually feel this with your toes. This eliminates any free play in the mechanism and the clunk noises when going from damping active to damping released. In my previous setup, I always had to let the pedal and release bar move to their upper positions which involved clunks.
Also I noticed that some of the noise (at least in the Mk II) is caused by play in the pivotal point of the release bar. when not depressed, the rods in the plastic bearings lie on the lower part of the bearing. when you push the pedal, the rods are pushed to the upper part of the bearings. This causes mechanical noise.
I will try some petroleum jelly (which is quite stiff) and see if that can dampen movement of the release bar pivot rods in the plastic bearings.

Hello Forum,
After reading for a while I had decided to join this forum and asked for admittance and here I am.

Thank you to the forum hosts and members for all the valuable information that has been gathered here over the years.

I am from Europe and a proud owner of a Rhodes Mark II 73 Stage Piano built in 1981.
I aquired this piano in 2015 and had started restoring it immediately.
The Tolex had been badly torn, the lid was missing, and because of that, the piano was very dirty inside.

I had
- taken it apart,
- cleaned it,
- renewed the Tolex cover with black Fender Tolex,
- renewed all damper felts (VV set)
- renewed the hammer tips (VV graded set)
- renewed part of the grommets and screws (I did not like the fact that the VV screws were thicker than the originals and therefore stopped this)
- renewed the pedestal felt (felt from a Portugese seller who is no longer in business)
- pickups were all working but some had been replaced/rewound.
At that time I did not have the tools and facilities to make a lid so I postponed that "to later".

Sadly, the Tolex detached again after a few weeks at the overlapping areas which really frustrated me and because "new adventures" lay ahead, I added the Rhodes to my stock of "uncompleted projects".

In February, I "restarted" the project.

Since then, I built a lid, renewed the Tolex, upgraded the hammer tips to VV's new graded set (which is very nice) and other things. I am not finished yet!

I will try to add new information for some of the topics I had been working on. This will include product reviews.

While working on my Rhodes and learning about intonation, I figured the best way to listen to the Rhodes for this task was through my Harman Kardon HiFi amplifier and a pair of headphones.

As the output level of the Rhodes Stage Piano is too low to really drive the line-in input of the HK well, I decided to upgrade to a built-in preamp (with tremolo/vibrato as a very desirable option).

I will also report about my search for a preamp, my pick and the disappointment with the purchased preamp.

Spoiler: I am currently implementing my own preamp which is basically a copy of the late Janus with knobs.