Topics

Hey all, just a quick question regarding installation of the miracle bump mod on my 1977 mark1 73. My model has the felts on the hammers rather than the pedestals. My plan is to relocate the felts to the pedestals.

Should I position the bump and glue it in place while the felts are on the hammers? Or should I remove the felts, position the bump, then glue the bump and felts? Or does it even matter?

My first thought is that I should leave the hammer felts while I set the bump mod. If there are no felts at all while positioning the bump, something may change after the felt is reinstalled. Is that a correct thought?

Thanks
Joel

[Hey Joel, thank you for all the great pics. When I reference escapement, what I really mean is harp height. I see you have a thick fiberboard shim on the bass end. What is the measurement from the first hammer tip to the bottom of the first tine. Tine should be voiced about 1/16th to an 1/8th over pickup roughly depending on the tone you are looking for. The escapement you are looking for is about 1/4 inch-3/8th Max.I suspect you have much more and this is why you are having to bend the dampers so high with the pre mids. 1977 pianos are known for having s mile of escapement. Setting up the strike line and escapement is how you will really improve on the existing tone and feel. Replacing parts is only the beginning.I noticed your bridle straps are all over the place in regards to how tight and loose they should be. 1. Get a good escapement.2. Change strike line if needed3. Adjust dampers according to new escapement.4. Level all dampers5. You want to see about an 1/8th of an inch movement when you lift the harp off dampers.Good luck!!]

Hello again
Im having some issues with new damper felts i recently purchased from Vintage Vibe. Long story short, i feel they are overall too small. VV has been great with giving my advice so far, but now im officially stuck..

after replacing all the felts, my PreMid dampers were way off the mark. the rest of them were also out of whack, but the pre mids are the worse offenders. in order for the felt to even make contact to the tine, i had to bend the damper arm up so far that just the front corner is making contact. this cant be right..?

I sent VV a message via their facebook page asking if this is a known issue. i know that they are much more knowledgeable than me with these and they see many, many, many more Rhodes' than i do. This is the response:

"Hey, send some pics- I have never ever seen anything like you are describing. Remember we restore hundreds of pianos and have never heard of or encountered this. There has got to be a reason on your end for this. What is your escapement like?  What year is your piano?  Thanks
Ok, I see it's a 77- you should not be having any issues at all.
"








I thought maybe i had the wrong size damper module on that section, but from pics i found online, they seem to be correct.


The next day they got back to me with this:

"Hey Joel, thank you for all the great pics.  When I reference escapement, what I really mean is harp height. I see you have a thick fiberboard shim on the bass end. What is the measurement from the first hammer tip to the bottom of the first tine. Tine should be voiced about 1/16th to an 1/8th over pickup roughly depending on the tone you are looking for. The escapement you are looking for is about 1/4 inch-3/8th Max.

I suspect you have much more and this is why you are having to bend the dampers so high with the pre mids.

1977 pianos are known for having s mile of escapement. Setting up the strike line and escapement is how you will really improve on the existing tone and feel. Replacing parts is only the beginning.

I noticed your bridle straps are all over the place in regards to how tight and loose they should be. 

1. Get a good escapement.
2. Change strike line if needed
3. Adjust dampers according to new escapement.
4. Level all dampers
5. You want to see about an 1/8th of an inch movement when you lift the harp off dampers.

Good luck!!


so when i got home from work i began looking into this info. my first response is "are the fiber board shims not a factory thing? is the harp supposed to rest metal to metal?" I sent a message to a friend of mine who has a similar generation mark 1 (a 76 i belive) asking if he can take a quick picture of his harp supports and send it to me as a reference. i was curious if his was shimmed differently from mine. its not. its the same.

i measured the escapment and found its right around 3/8ths, maybe a little shy. its hard to get a picture holding the ruler, key, and camera but it is right around 3/8ths


So whats my next step? Im stuck.

Just for reference, these are the felts that came off. they are clearly larger all across the board.


thanks for any input!

Joel


PS, i cant stress enough that this isnt a negative post regarding VV. they have been great so far. im just looking for opinions from people who have been doing this longer than me (which is just about everyone on this forum.)

Hello all. Im having questions regarding what should be replaced on my 77 mk1 73. i Mentioned this Rhodes briefly in another post but i figured id give some details as i have some time, tasty beer, and wife and kids are in bed.  ill start with some back story..




This showed up on  my local Craigslist about two weeks ago (the ad is still up). ive been in the market for an affordable rhodes for a while now and i thought this may be a good opportunity. Now this ad has red flags all over it. if you look at the pic, theres clearly at least on stuck key. the ad sounds like its written by an elementary school kid. also, as a side note, if you are familiar with New Hampshire towns you would know that Franklin is the armpit of the state. nothing good comes out of frankin. i went on  a whim and called the number that was listed. talked to the girlfriend of the owner who knew little about it but she did tell me its missing the sustain pedal but has the legs, which was my first question. i set up a time later that day to go look at it. I met with the owner who was in his late 20's. he wasnt really a musician though he did have a couple cheap acoustic guitars and a casitone. he told me he got it from his uncle in hopes of using it and he never did. he lost his job and was looking for some quick cash. Fortunately i did a bit of research on what a replacement sustain pedal would cost, so i had that figure in my head. being the lowballer that i am, i offered 250. we settled on $300. not too bad.

i got it home and begun cleaning it up as it was pretty gross. it smelled like cigarettes and who knows what. it was also dirty all over. i quickly noted some faults that were not mentioned or observed when we initally looked at it. one of the leg flanges was detatched and bent (still on one of the legs) and it did not have cross bars



i set it up on a couple of my old sansui speakers in the basement. this was to let it air out as it smelled pretty bad. i started to play in and just mess with it a bit. both knobs were real scratch but some good ol peavey funk out did the trick. it didnt play well and many notes were out of tune. i started taking it apart, cleaning and easing the keys with teflon lube. i vacuumed out all kinds of mouse poop and miscellaneous debris. i even came accross an old mud wasp nest






i took each tine and tonebar off and cleaned them. some surface rust was forming on the tines but it could have been worse



i re-installed all the tonebars and tines and set the escapement even across the board using the tone generator as a guide. next thing i did was tuned the whole piano. i wanted to be able to play it when it was in tune. i wanted to be able to test it while it was in tune, going forward. i did the stretch tuning across the board



So next i ordered parts from Vintage Vibe. i ordered their sustain pedal, crossbars, knob, some miscellaneous hardware. i was able to bend the leg flange back strait and got some new T-nuts and screws. i put everything together and finished cleaning up the tolex (which took alot of windex and elbow grease).

this is how it looks and is set up now






So thats where i am today. So now back to the question of "what should i be replacing?". now i will say that ive already ordered the "Full refurb kit", more key leveling shims, a sustain rod thingy that i didnt know i was missing, and a full set of bridle staps all from vintage vibe. I honestly knew nothing about the inner workings of these pianos until 2 weeks ago when i bought this so im not really sure what things "should" look like. i understand that hammer tips and damper felts should be replaced if theres grooves or a lot of noticable wear. my tips and damper felts dont look bad in comparison to examples found on the internet of "bad" felts or tips. Im at the point where i feel i should just replace everything to save having to do it not far down the road.
These are my Tips




Felts..



These felts on the hammers will be relocated to the pedestal when i do the bump mod


Missing sustain dowel ( i guess )


Date



If this was your piano, what would you do to it?

thanks for reading my story. this forum has been very helpful so far.

Joel

Hello all. New member to the forums but I've been lurking for about a week. Last week I acquired a 77 stage mk1 73 for peanuts on my local Craig's list. Ive wanted a Rhodes for many years and couldn't pass the opportunity when I saw it. Until a week ago, I had zero knowledge of the inner workings on these things. Long story short the person I got it from inherited it from his uncle and knew NOTHING about it. In fact, it was even advertised as a 79. It turned out to need far more work than I anticipated, but because I got it so cheap I couldn't lose. Also I've been having fun working on it.

My question is this: Has anyone had their action affected by the name rail when installed? When tightened, mine puts a small but of pressure on the keys resulting is poor action. The felt is in tact though I'm not sure how to tell if it should be replaced. There are two screw holes on each side of the name rail, though I only have one screw in each side. The tonebar cover also puts a bit of pressure pushing on the name rail, making the affect worse. Any input on this? Is this as simple as adding a couple washers under the name rail screws to shim it up slightly? Also, on a proper rhodes, should you be able to lift the key at all with the name rail or is it supposed to be snug. Thanks in advance

Joel