Messages

Many people on this forum have helped me in learning to restore and maintain my Wurli and Rhodes pianos so I thought I'd share some of the original music I've made using them. Feel free to check out below. Thanks to the community here for the support.

This one features Wurli:
https://soundcloud.com/hollowengine/modal-dichotomy-ii-1

And this one's got Rhodes and Wurli:
https://soundcloud.com/hollowengine/giants

Cool. Hope you enjoy.
~Cory

Sorry! Yes, you're right David. 5/32" is the diameter. Not sure what state of mind I was in last night when I posted that, but 5/16" is way too big. Trying to be helpful, but that one backfired on me. Thanks for catching that!

Did you find that 1-3/4" was the optimal length?

This is a late reply, but just wanted to confirm for all posterity that the diameter is, indeed, 5/16. 1-3/4 length would be good, but I found 5/16 diameter with 1-1/4 length at a local place and it at least passes through the pedal with a fair amount of shaft left on either side once stuck through the pedal.

I might have the idea of what you're getting at. Are you saying that you made the top edge of the reed bar closest to the pickups rounded instead of a right angle? And if so, that would have helped because there's now less surface area on the reed bar for the front of the reed to touch? This makes sense to me as it sounds like you're saying the reed bar was inhibiting the reed from vibrating where there wasn't enough overhang of the front of the reed over the reed bar.

Also looking forward to the results. It's really convenient that you have another reed bar to swap in. Makes for a great test!

Cinnanon, do let us know what you come up with. I am very curious if you'll be able to improve the situation.

Steveo, I bet you'd have a number of pianos to service where I am in the NYC area. It's actually quite hard to find someone to work on them here.
What an odd drop-off year-to-year though - wow 145 one year and 0 the next?

I never truly resolved this issue. In the end I have just been learning to deal with it, and for my purposes, it has never caused any major problems. Still not truly sure whether the volume dip in the treble is terribly abnormal on my piano because I haven't played many other Wurlis. Do you feel that the volume dip you're experiencing is abnormal compared to other Wurlis or what it should be?

David, I received your pins in the mail today. Thanks for sending them. It was very generous of you. Since we're still not totally sure of the dimensions and I have these pins, I think I will try to replace my pin the same way you did. Sounds like I'll have to drill to make a little space for the new pin, but I'll have the benefit of not having to extract an existing one.

Thanks for the update! If you don't mind, it would be great if you could still drop a couple in the mail. My local hardware stores are pretty difficult about little items like these.

Yes, please do keep me updated on the pins. I'd love to get my hands on them as I am trying to get this pedal fixed, the sooner the better. If you have a source for these, I'm also curious about that. I'm more than happy to try to acquire them on my own.

Again, your assistance has been much appreciated thus far!

Yeah, I'm not sure about the dimensions of that pin. I don't even have one to my name to compare against. Appreciate the trouble though!

And I will look into the benefits of a back check. Thanks for that tip.

Your thought makes a ton of sense David. I read through the thread you linked to, and an even longer one linked to in that thread. Sounds like people haven't had a lot of luck trying to fix this problem on their Rhodes pianos. Also, like I said, I have done a lot of work to regulate the dimensional standards of this piano and played around with shimming the harp in various ways and played around with strike line already.

I'm starting to think this is a limitation of the piano itself, which is disapointing, but maybe partially explains all the washy non-aggressive playing you hear from Rhodes pianos in old recordings. Though I'm perplexed listening to, for example, Chick Corea, play so quickly and percussively on Return to Forever tracks. I'm certainly no Chick Corea but it's hard to imagine my piano being played so wonderfully under any circumstances. Maybe there's a lot of variance in Rhodes piano quality, eh?

One other thought: I was wondering if the continued bounce in the hammer after an initial strike could factor into the 2nd-strike issue. Ever experiment with trying to reduce the amount of post-strike bounce found in hammers?

Thanks David! PM sent.

In terms of the rest of the problem with my sustain mechanism, if it helps understand what I'm experiencing, check out the below YouTube video I recorded today. As you can see, the hammer has trouble connecting with the tines on repeated notes when the sustain pedal is engaged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkRbNBycw80

I haven't yet had time to troubleshoot this a ton, but will be able to look into it more this week. Thanks for any advice in advance!

I have a 1978 Mark I stage piano Seventy Three. The sustain pedal fulcrum rod is missing and, prior to my owning the piano, someone replaced it with a small allen wrench. As you might expect, this is an imperfect solution and the pedal sits unevenly in its housing. I'm wondering if anyone has a solution for this missing piece. Any ideas? I don't see a replacement for sale anywhere. I've attached an image below of the inside parts of the sustain pedal from another thread on this forum for reference.

Additionally, I am having issues with the action when using the sustain pedal. Not sure yet how much, if any, it is related to this piece being missing, but the action feels good when not using the sustain pedal. The issue with the action is that when the sustain pedal is engaged, when depressing a key twice in a row, the hammer often does not strike the tine the second time. It feels like you have to hit the key really hard to make good contact with the time on both the first and second blow. I just went through and did a near-full restoration of the piano, including dimensional adjustments. The exception is that I didn't adjust the dampers after making all the other adjustments, such as key dip and escapement. Is it likely that I just need to make damper adjustments per the manual and this issue will get ironed out?

It's a 1978 stage piano seventy three so it's got all plastic hammers.  And graduated hammer tips.

So the manual describes setting escapement at three different ranges across the 5 different types of hammer tips, which lead me to believe that I would need to manually transition escapement measurement across the entire keyboard. Is that not true? Or are you saying that if I set all the tone bars to the same height the escapement will transition the way the manual describes automatically?

If this isn't making sense, maybe I should take a step back and ask, how do you set escapement across the entire piano from scratch? What's the step by step method?

Thanks!

When setting escapement on my piano, I'm noticing that if I set a number of adjacent notes to the same height that the tone bars vary in height a fair amount. Is this normal and acceptable?

I also noticed that some of the hammers sit at slightly different levels when they are at rest, which may have some impact on the above.

Additionally, are there any thoughts about best strategy for varying escapement across different sections of the piano. The manual as well as a number of other resources note that it makes sense to transition from the larger recommended escapement distances at the low end down to lower escapement distances at the high end, but I haven't seen tips about where (what keys) to begin these transitions, whether they should be more sudden or more gradual, etc. Is this completely dictated by personal preference and trial/error? Any tips to make this a faster process for me would be excellent!

Yes, this piano has the 4 screw arrangement you describe, Ben.

Thanks for the responses! Appreciate the confirmation.

I am restoring a '78 Mark I Stage Piano Seventy Three and when removing the keyboard assembly from the cabinet, I found that all 4 screws were bent pretty badly and had to replace them all. In the case of the two smaller screws (#8 x 1 1/2"), they were so bent that when I removed them from the piano the tips broke off inside the keyboard assembly, making it impossible to use the existing screw holes to place new screws in the piano. See images below. I don't think there's going to be any good way to remove those screw tips from the bottom of the keyboard assembly.

So the question is, are there any opinions on drilling new holes for these two smaller screws both through the cabinet and keyboard assembly? I can't think of any issues this would cause but wanted to hear thoughts before I go and do something stupid.

Broken Screws compared to new equivalent Screw:



Bottom of Keyboard Assembly showing the broken off tip stuck inside:

Thank you! I ended up spending a ton of time getting all the junk off the hammers, but I'm excited to play and hear these new tips!

Just wanted to check, there's only one lip on each hammer right? One to place the hammer tip against on the side closest to the keys when installed, right? May sound like a funny question but there's so much glue on my hammers that it kinda looks like there are two lips when I remove the hammer tips. Didn't want to sand away part of the hammer tips! Thanks!

Thanks David. This is very helpful and I appreciate the feedback. I actually saw a post where you posted these images, and noticed that the hammer in your top photo appears to be much cleaner than any of mine. I'll try to work off a bit more of the material on the lip as you mentioned and call it a day. Perhaps using a newer hand file will help as I was having a pretty hard time scraping off residue from the lip.

That hammer on the far left of the "After" photo snuck into the photo before I cleaned it off.

Hi there,

I'm restoring my '78 Mark I Stage Piano Seventy Three and have a question about procedure for cleaning off the residue on the (all plastic) hammers after removing the original hammer tips. How clean do the hammers need to be? Pictures showing before and after removal of residue below.

BEFORE:



AFTER:



I've seen discussion on the forum about various methods for removing the hammer tip residue and have tried the box cutter method as well as the hand file method. I was a bit concerned because after lots of effort I'm still seeing some black areas where I'll need to glue on the new hammer tips and am now seeing some small quantities of the plastic come off as I cut or file away more of the previous hammer tips.

I've also just purchased a sander wheel Dremel tool attachment, which I haven't had the opportunity to use yet, but am not sure it's the best idea anyway as the sand paper is very gritty and I don't want to sand away the surface of the hammers.

Any opinions or suggestions are much welcome!

Hi all,

How clean do these plastic hammers need to be before gluing on new hammer tips? I'm using a box cutter and a hand file and it's working fairly well but there's no way I'm going to remove some of the black in certain areas.

I'm on a mobile device now but can put up a photo later if it's helpful.

Thanks!

Hi all,

Recently purchased a '78 Rhodes 73 key stage piano. I am very familiar with the Wurlitzer e-pianos and have restored one completely but am much less acquainted with the Rhodes. What I know about mine is that it appears to be in very commendable shape for an instrument this old - tines and tone bars are corosion-free, grommets seem fine (though not sure how much they've stiffened over the years), hammer tips don't have too much wear, etc. The only part I know that needs to be replaced is a tine. I'd love to get this piano serviced though as its action and sustain pedal feel pretty bad and because I'd like to have someone make other things right that I haven't had time to discover yet. I'm sure things are way out of whack.

So I have two questions.

1) What level of service do I need to submit this piano to? For instance, should I ask a tech to strip the piano down to the keybed, clean and lubricate all the action parts and build it back up with perfectly level keys, etc? Or should I have them tweak things without starting from the ground up? I assume this question is hard not knowing the specific condition of the piano, but getting a general sense will be helpful for now. I can also investigate the condition of the piano further if there are specific items I can look into that will make addressing this question easier.

2) Where can I take my Rhodes in the NYC area where a good tech will work on it? I have explored this topic quite a bit and I am either not impressed with most of the reviews I see on local shops, the shops are not willing to do the work at the moment because of how busy they are, or a combo of both. I was excited because a friend recommended Central Jersey Music Service, and when I called the tech said he'd give it the works for about $300 not including parts, which seemed super reasonable. However, I quickly found that he was talking about only going through the piano and tweaking things rather than starting from the foundation. Not sure I want to spend money and time on this only to be disapointed with the outcome.

Thanks for the responses.

I believe my continutity testing described above has served me well. I pulled the image below from a Vintage Vibe Youtube video and it shows the ground wire that I am missing in my piano. I can't see from the image, but I suppose this ground wire connects the damper connecting rod to the reed bar. I am assuming when I make a ground wire and attach it, I will be in better shape.

Hi all,

I am noticing a little bit of amplified scratching occur when operating the sustain pedal of my Wurli 200A and a little pop when the pedal is engaged or released. I believe there is a ground issue. I have tested continuity with a multimeter from the ground wire connections in the pedal up through the damper connecting rod and things are good. However, that is the last point between the pedal any other part of the piano that has continuity. I'm assuming this is a problem and could be what's causing my issue. Does this sound right?

Is there supposed to be a ground wire that runs from the damper connecting rod to the piece of metal that runs vertically between the bass and treble sides of the damper arms? Or a ground wire that runs between the damper connecting rod and another part of the piano?

Thanks!

Just to get a sense of how effective damping the vibrations in this way would be, I placed a rolled up piece of cotton fabric from a t-shirt and it works well.

Alright, I have an update. I was definitely getting some buzz from contact between the damper arms and bottom of the hum shield. I raised up the hum shield and things are better, but not perfect. I am still getting buzzing when playing certain combinations of notes in the lower register with the volume turned up fairly high, but when I place my hand firmly on the top of the lid and press down a bit, the buzzing is almost completely gone.

I noticed this item in the above shared list from Vintage Vibe:

rubber pads should be placed between hum shield and top case.

I'm assuming this means that rubber should be placed on top of the hum shield and be making contact with the lid above it (in a way that would emulate my hand pressing down on top of the lid). Is that right? What suggestions are there for materials? 

Thanks for all the replies. The list from Vintage Vibe gave me an idea to check when I get home this evening. I never re-secured the wires that connect the amplifier board to the speakers after doing work inside the piano. They're kind of just resting inside the arm of the lid on the bass side. Not sure that's the issue, but worth a try. Also, the foam on the top of my reed shield has severely deteriorated and i covered it with tape in order to preserve the damping properties while preventing the foam from flaking off into the piano. I suppose the deteriorated foam could be making things worse if it no longer extends high enough to touch the inside top of the lid.

I will report back with any findings.

I have never seen a buzz issue caused by the lid in a 200 series. It is common in older models,however.

Are you sure ths is a buzz like a grounding issue? Is it a constant noise or only while reeds are vibrating?

The buzzing sounds more mechanical to my ear than something related to the electronics. It occurs only when the reeds are vibrating, which made me think there was a loose screw or some other loose point of contact between hard materials.

I would start by taking the lid off and see if the buzz goes away.
Most of the buzzing issues I have had are between contact points between the lid and rest of piano.

The buzz actually does seem a good deal worse when the lid is on but I had assumed this was because the speakers, being attached to the lid, were not present to create stronger vibrations in the piano.

Got it. Sounds like there isn't a standard here. I'll use what I've got around and see how it works. Thanks Steveo.

I'm getting a lot of buzz from sympathetic frequencies when playing my Wurli 200A, especially in the lower half of the keyboard. I've gone in and tightened every screw I could gain access to without removing the entire innards of the piano and the issue persists. I know there a ton of different things that could be causing the buzzing, but are there common places to look at all? Other tips that could make diagnosing this quicker for me? I recall seeing a Vintage Vibe video where they were trying for a really long time to find the source of the buzz and I'm kind of dreading going through this process. Thanks!

Does anybody have suggestions on what to use to re-glue sections of this felt strip to the lid of a Wurli 200A?

I've read about using 3M weathersripping adhesive on dampers and hammer tips. Would this be a good option here as well? Thanks!

This is, indeed, really good to know. I hadn't heard of this phenomenon previously but was recently considering moving my piano and it is cooool outside. This may have just saved me some confusion. Thanks guys!

Check off and let off are not the same thing, and yes, it is Somewhat normal for the shorter reeds to have a little less volume, but a significant drop, no.
Letting off way too soon can cause this.

I am aware of the difference between let off and check off. Just mentioned check off in case it would bring up any other ideas. It's the only variable that I haven't yet judiciously accounted for when restoring my piano. Again, let off is very uniform and up to spec.

Just a thought, have you played another wurlitzer that sounds differently than yours? The C#5 on up, is that the last octave of the piano or last two?  Generally the last octave is much quieter i've noticed. I assumed it is the shorter reeds. The longer reeds travel further when hit harder, but the shorter the reed, the shorter the potential for travel. Make sense or errant blasphemy?

Yes, I am talking about just the last octave. The principles you're describing here make sense to me, though I agree with Steve that the drop-off in volume seems more pronounced than one would expect. I haven't had a lot of exposure to properly set up Wurlis beyond my own, so not a lot to compare to, but again, this seems much too quiet.

Yes, I'm sure they're not letting off too early. The check off on my piano varies a bit from key to key, but that shouldn't impact this I guess. I'm at a loss for what other details I can provide.

I believe it's been like this since I purchased it. When I got the piano, the action was quite of of order so I didn't pay it much notice, but now that everything else is feeling and sounding good, it's noticeable. A friend of mine who's a pianist played the piano and noted that it wasn't too bad and that it could be normal for that register, but I imagine it should still be louder here.

Alright, sounds good! Sounds like maybe I was over thinking this one. Just apply solder and file. I figured there might be some tricks because it's not as easy to do as it is to say, but I probably just need to practice a bit.

I have a note on my Wurli 200 where the reed tip formed from solder needs to be shaped from scratch and am not sure of the technique for doing this. The note is D sharp 1 (key 7) so the size of the solder tip should be pretty big (I think about 3/16" tall by about 1/4" long). Does anyone have advice or a resource they can point me toward?

I also have a reed mold from Vintage Vibe but the reed in question falls outside the range of notes that the reed mold covers.

Thanks!

I have been away for a few days with a really busy work schedule but I appreciate the input. I just tested the DC voltage and, if I understand how to measure it properly, both sides of the reed bar measure the same. I have an analog multimeter, so my reading might not be totally accurate but it looked like it was about 80 volts on both sides. Should I be connecting one lead to the actual pickup and the other to the frame of the read bar? This is what I did and it was the only way I could get the multimeter to register a reading.

Like the other poster who has a similar issue (4kinga), my problem in scale doesn't become apparent to my ear until I turn the piano on, suggesting an electronic issue. However, a difference on my piano is that the volume drops considerable between approximately keys 52 (louder) and 53 (quieter), rather than the volume dropping gradually over a number of keys. Again, keys 53 or so up to 64 are pretty quiet.

Other thoughts?

Maybe I should soak the reeds again using vinegar? I've seen that done to great effect on nuts and bolts.

Ah I see what you mean regarding shims now. Those rubbery white shims are in place.

No sign of the pickups being damaged or portions filed. The reeds are all quite close to the pickups at this section of the piano.

Should I set the let off closer to the reeds on these specific quiet notes?

Is it likely that the reeds are just old and need replaced here? Didn't seem like it'd be the simplest explanation to me.

I believe the service manual discusses briefly sanding at least the point of contact to the reed bar on the reed.

I soaked all my reeds in wd40 for a couple days and spent some time wiping as much black grime away as possible, which improved things, but there is a lot more gunk on there preventing sustain. What type of oil or solution would you recommend?

I have been troubleshooting notes in my piano where the sustain is minimal and found a reed where a bit of jagged solder was attached to the bottom. After removing this solder the note now sustains longer. I also ended up removing a considerable amount of solder from the pyramid on top, so I'm not sure whether removing the jagged bit of solder that wasn't supposed to be there increased the sustain or if it was the overall removal of solder. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

Also, I think I've seen some mixed opinions on using a very fine emery or sand paper to remove black tarnish or corrosion from reeds? Is there any consensus on this? I tried it on a reed that had so little sustain (about 2 seconds) I figured I'd end up having to replace it anyway, and was able to get about an extra second of sustain out of it. I also cleaned the point of contact on the reed bar, which had a small amount of corrosion, so that also helped increase the sustain time.

Thanks for your reply. I very recently adjusted the let off so that it's 1/8" across the board. Double checked for anomalies in the treble section but everything looks right.

I did not place any shims in the piano. There are a couple of paper shims under the balance rail on the treble side that I think were placed in the factory. These do not go further than about key 47. There are also a couple of paper disc-shaped shims on the treble keys underneath the felts, but where that is the case, there is only one shim, so this shouldn't be the issue.

My Wurlitzer 200a has reduced volume in the treble section all the way from about C#5 til the highest note. I tried to adjust the strike line on the treble side of the piano by moving the reed bar as far forward (toward the keys) as possible but this did little as the reed bar seemed to be as far forward as it could go. What could be going on here? Is it common for this whole section of the piano to have low volume output?

Thanks!

I just tried adjusting the strike line on an individual note, which may have helped a touch, though I'm not sure, and the difference in volume between this note and the lower notes on the piano is still quite large.

Also, FYI, I've gone through the all the previous steps in the service manual, e.g. adjusted lost motion, so the action of piano should be mostly in order.

These reeds (smallest/highest pitch on the piano) shouldn't ware out as quickly as the other sections right?

My Wurlitzer 200a has reduced volume in the treble section all the way from about C#5 til the highest note. I tried to adjust the strike line on the treble side of the piano by moving the reed bar as far forward (toward the keys) as possible but this did little as the reed bar seemed to be as far forward as it could go. What could be going on here? Is it common for this whole section of the piano to have low volume output?

Thanks!