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What I usually do is I hold the hammer in place with a finger so it doesn't move and then I lightly press the key with my other hand and see how much the key moves before it's obstructed by the hammer. I don't actually measure it - I just make sure that each key has a "little bit of wiggle" before the hammer moves anywhere.

A little late reply, but I have quite a bit of experience with FX pedals on Wurlitzer.

Generally you should avoid the headphone output - mostly because I think it tends to be more noisy - but there should not really be any risk to your pedals. The output from aux will be close to line level. Some pedals react well to line level signals - others don't. In my experience most digital pedals do allright, while things like analog wah pedals tend to distort in a very unflattering way. I also have a Cali76 compressor pedal that will be very hard to dial in with line levels because it's designed for much lower levels.

You can buy an attenuator that will "pad" down the signal by maybe 20dB. Use something like that, run it into a DI and then gain the signal again with a good mic pre.

Have anyone in here been installing the Vintage Vibe 200A Amplifier before? I have a couple of questions.

So I've soldered up everything, but I have a few questions before I hook up power. I've marked up the schematic below to outline what I'm in doubt about:

A) I did not get a new cabling harness, nor did I get the replacement preamp, so I'm reusing the existing wiring harness. In the schematic there is a "shield" marked, which I am assuming is supposed to be the shield from the cable that comes with the 15V and the 150V line? In my instance, the shield cable was cut (see 2nd picture). I remember hearing in one of the VV tutorial videos that when you use the new preamp board you only have one ground line to avoid ground loops. Not sure, but maybe it was cut for this reason? I don't suspect it's a problem that I've left it out - I should always be able to add it in later, right? Just want to check to make sure I may not harm anything.

B) It's not clear what the line marked "G" in the power section is short for. I'm assuming ground? Or green? I only have four lines running out of the PSU. None of them are green, so I assumed it was ground. As you can see in picture 2 I soldered it to a cable that is attached to the rail with a shoe. Additionally I have the ground from the mains input going to the same point. Is this the right configuration? Also there are two red cables.
I'm assuming they do the same thing and the order is not important, right? (Note that this EP is running in 230V configuration)

C) I noticed there is a pre-wired jumper on the Aux input. Could I use this to implement an FX loop if I wanted to? How?

I'm still a bit puzzled as to what comes out of the power supply? I'm assuming there is a 15V and a 150V line, but what cables does what? It's not really covered in the diagram from VV.

Thanks for your help and merry christmas!

Sorry. It's definitely a cracked reed. I tried tuning one of these once - despite advice I got in here - because I was in the same situation as you.

Managed to get it in tune but it had no sustain and sounded awful. Two days after tuning it broke.

I suppose reeds can break even if let-off is correctly adjusted, right? But it's a good thing to check because a lot of times they've been hot-rodded to eat through reeds.

I have two 200 Wurlies sitting here at the moment that I can maybe try and test. But they are not set up ad I'm preparing for Christmas, so not sure I can make it today.

But in general I find 200 models to be quieter than 200A as well. Quiter than an acoustic upright as noted elsewhere. I installed a Retrolinear amp in my personal one which helped a bit, but not that much. It's a shame because the speakers sound really good and but you get a lot of mechanical noise if you mic them because they are so quiet.

Right. I thought it was some very thin type of vinyl, but you're probably right.

In this case the vintagegear texture is very different though and a clear giveaway for anyone who has had an original pedal in their hand.

[Total: ~370USD]

Sorry for the late reply.

I purchased a sustain pedal and legs for a Wurli from vintagegear.eu.

The legs were very nice quality. Almost indistinguishable from the originals.

Although they claim the pedal is an exact replica, it's actually a quite obvious remake, but the pictures of it are accurate. The shape of the housing and the shape of the pedal itself is not quite right and the same goes for the finish. The original is wrapped in a vinyl-like material. This one is just painted wood. But there is nothing wrong with the mechanical function or the build quality overall.

It works great and even though it might not look exactly like the original it's close enough that nobody would ever call you out on a dim stage for having a remake sustain pedal for your Wurli.

I live in Denmark and the numbers make it an absolute nobrainer for me:

The price from Vintage Vibe is:
Pedal: 195 USD
Shipping: 75.82 USD
Import fee: 25 USD
VAT: 74 USD

Total: ~370USD
(and I suspect that there might be an additional tax on top of that - probably in the 3-5% range)

The price from vintagegear.eu
Pedal: 170 USD
Shipping: 19 USD

Total: ~189 USD

Another option is ep-service.nl, but they generally set their prices so they almost perfectly match what it costs to ship inidividual items directly from vintage vibe:
Pedal: 265 USD
Shipping: 26.5 USD
VAT: 61 USD

Total: ~352,5 USD

I've purchased a sustain pedal and legs from vintagegear.eu and I'm very happy with the result.

The sustain pedal is not wrapped in Tolex like the original, but it still looks very convincing and feels like I imagine my original one would have when it was new.

Interesting. You just described how I pick up my Wurlitzer and fortunately I don't have any problems. Maybe they are more fragile than I thought. It's just a shame if you have to sacrifice one of the great appeals of a Wurlitzer 200 - that you can carry it up stairs one man - by putting it in a flightcase

But I don't think a bag will be as much of a problem as you suggest. Remember that the weight will be dispersed over the entire backside of the Wurli as opposed to being concentrated in those two spots where you put your hands. But it might need more support to protect it from something heavy ending on top of it during transportation.

I used to have a Nord C1 and the gigbag for that was almost a perfect fit for a Wurlitzer. You had to fold up the padded sides towards the ends of the piano so it was not so well protected where the padding was removed, but overall the structure was quite strong so I was not worried about other items on top of it. I wish they would make that bag 3-4cm longer. It would be absolutely ideal for Wurlitzer.

I've never understood keyboard covers. To me it's not worth it having to take off a cover every time I want to play (which is often). And on top of that I want to admire my instruments when I'm not playing them.

Fitted softbags/gigbags, on the other hand, is something I see way too rarely. I think all keyboards should come with a snug fitted gigbag. Flightcases add a lot of bulk and are mostly relevant when you are actually flying. Most keyboards have been designed to be transported anyway - as long as you're not careless about it.

I'll probably get a cover for my B3, though. But that's just because it's not really realistic to put it in a bag anyway

I've been looking into getting a custom bag made for my Wurlitzer, but before venturing onto that path I found out that this bag actually does fit. It's a little tight in terms of the depth and given that you have to stretch it, the protection could probably be better, but it's still a lot better than nothing. Maybe I'll get down to building a custom bag some time in the future.

https://www.thomann.de/dk/thomann_typ3.htm

I'm in Denmark where we have 220-240V. My 200 is not converted from 115V so it is originally for the European market and it has two fuses - one for live and one for neutral. Oddly I have a 200A which only has one fuse. The switch has 4 terminals, though. I don't know if the extra fuse in the 200 is an aftermarket modification, but it's probably not a bad idea in case the polarization should get reversed.

In general we use Shuko plugs which are not polarized. I installed a standard IEC-type connector on the Wurli, so that is polarized but the cables themselves can always be reversed in the wall outlet. I sent a message to ep-service which is based in Holland where I think they have the same system, so I'll see how they respond.

I've ordered this replacement switch from ep-service.nl and I'm not completely sure if it's safe to use, given that it only has 2 terminals where as the original one had 4 terminals (see picture).

What I would do to make this work would be to splice neutral wire so it goes directly to the fuses and then only switch the live wire. On the original both the live and neutral are swithed. Initially I thought it would be ok to only switch live, but then I realized how easily you could reverse that simply by reversing the plug in your wall outlet (I'm in Europe and use Schuko plugs that can be reversed) resulting in the neutral being switched and the live being fed straight into the piano. This sounds like a potential death trap - am I right or is there something I'm missing?

Or maybe there is a clever and safe way to install this switch?

Even if you get a replacement cord that is the opposite, you can always change the pins around on the molex connector inside the piano on the amp rail to match.  Need the right tools to form an IEC port out of the oval one.

I only had a file at hand so I used it to file out the hole to fit an IEC plug. It worked and it ended up looking good, but it took me like 2 hours

Just leave it on for a while and it should go away, but try not to leave a Wurlitzer in a freezing car for very long.

Leaving it out too long would just mean it takes longer to get up to temperature, right? I don't see it should be reason for permanent damage.

I guess the conclusion is that you need to bring compressed air and a hair-dryer if you are gigging with a wurli

Lost motion is very rare in Wurlitzers, and non existent in Rhodes. It is far more common in acoustic pianos. Too much lost motion causes hammer bobbling, and sometimes improper damper function in acoustic pianos. It could cause bobbling in a Wurlitzer, but just raise the capstan on 100 series models a little (on the back of the key) and raise the whippen by turning the lower capstan right to left (treble end to bass end) on the 200 series models to reduce lost motion. This raises the jack towards the butt, but there needs to be a tiny gap there. Again, it is a rarely needed adjustment on a Wurlitzer, however.

In the service manual it says "Adjust lost motion: A small amount of lost motion should be put into the kay and action of electronic piano to make sure the jack will always return..."

That's what I'm trying to achieve. Before I started there was no lost motion, now I'm introducing it, but I don't want to introduce too much as it would make the action wobbly.

Yeah I put a visual on it too. They say 1/32" but that, in my opinion, is huuuuuge! I think that is a measurement meant to be taken at the front of the key but the manual describes that as the distance between the whip and fly felt   I simply watch the hammer butt as I delicately press the key. I look to make sure that there is no hammer motion when I start to press the key, and then make sure the hammer butt starts to rise after the first .020" of key travel.

I just looked at the manual again. It's true in the text it is described as the distance between the tip of the fly and the hammer butt, but that's what's impossible to measure. There is a figure, however, and now I notice that they indicate that you can measure the lost motion by observing the key lip (see picture).

I guess my method of holding the hammer back while gently pressing the key makes good sense. Measuring the distance based on the key lip was the missing link, but I think I got pretty close doing it by eye as soon as I realized that I could isolate the lost motion movement by holding back the hammer.

How on earth do you get away with measuring lost motion? You can't see anything back there unless you're dealing with the extreme lowest or the extreme highest note?

I've thought about that for a long time. Today I finally figured out a way:

I use one finger to hod the hammer butt back while using the other hand to depress the key and then I look how much motion there is in the whip. I don't have a third hand to actually measure the motion, so it's by eye, but I noticed that a lot of my keys have no lost motion at all even though I attempted to adjust it previously.

What do you do? Do you go by feel or do yo have other little tricks?

Sad story

One thing I've learned is that if you want to gig with your wurli you need to keep it clean. If there is a lot of dust under the keybed moving it around will shake things up and often lead to crackles and other weird symptoms when setting up to do a gig. It can usually be alleviated with a can of compressed air, but keeping things clean and tidy will get you very far. So strip it down to the keybed and clean everything up if it has not been done in recent times.

Edit:

Not only the reeds can be shorted. With my last wurli I found a sewing needle a couple of centimeters away from the input terminals on the AC jack. It had the perfect size for potentially causing a short and it had moved all of the way to the back of the piano from the keybed I assume. Now I've protected the terminals with shrink wrap tubing so it should be safe.

Nice. I used to have a Trixon Tonemaster from the 60's. You're german, so you probably know them. Amazing design, great tone. I picked it up at a time when my life was turning towards other things than music, though, so I never got to practice much on it. In the end I just had it in storage. Sold it last year to a friend who is using it every day to make records and I used the money to buy my first Wurlitzer, so I'm pretty happy that it found more love elsewhere. But there is certainly some of the same character in vibraphone as in vintage keyboards like Rhodes and Wurlitzer.

Thanks again for your help guys. I put together all of the advice you gave me and today I finished replacing the bushings. It plays like new. No knocking or wobbly keys. Only a couple of keys that need a bit of easing, now (discovered it after I put it back together, but I'll have to get "down there" soon anyway).

Look at that YouTube video and pay attention to how he places the felt into the second key (the sharp).

Doh... I did not watch the video to the end. That method is much easier and saves felt.

Get some white plastic key bushing cauls from Howard Piano Industries, like pictured.

cinnanon, which ones?  I seem to recall they sell them at different widths.

I bought mine at ep-service.nl. Don't know where they get them and I probably paid a premium, but they seem to be the right size and I measured them at 3.6mm.

Who was the guy in here dabling in 3D printing EP parts? These cauls are an obvious subject for 3D printing.

• In one of the bushings I had a little bit of glue residue on the caul when I got it out, meaning that there was probably a bit of glue on the keypin-facing side of the felt. I understand that it is probably not a good place to have glue, but is it something I should be religious about and redo the busing completely because of a tiny amount of glue or should I just make sure to let the glue cure completely before putting the keys back in?

Do what the guy in the video does and spread the glues with a toothpick.  It will leave a more uniform spread of glue and you shouldn't have a problem of glue reaching the caul.  Maybe you're squeezing too much?  I use roughly a drop of glue and spread it around. Make sure it's dried a day before reinstalling the key in the keybed.

I did spread it with something similar to a toothpick. I think I spread it too deep in the bushing so the felt was not covering all of the glue and when I was impatient to see how it was working I tried sneaking the caul out a little to soon so it dragged a bit of glue onto the felt. It's not much, really, but I should probably just avoid getting glue too deep into the bushings and try to be a bit more patient.

I ended up doing 3 keys last night and I tried them in this morning at it seems to work really well excepts for one of them where the bushing was too tight and another where I had to turn the guide pin back to center. So I think I consider my little test succesful and I believe I'm ready to commit to doing it to the rest of the keys now. Can't wait to see the result

Definitely worth it to get rid of the side-to-side slop/clicks without deforming the key with those punch tools.  Make sure all your front pins are straight. They are oval and someone previous may have turned them to become "wider".  This also gets rid of the slop too (temporarily).

Thanks for reassuring me that it is worth the effort - right now I think it is very challenging and time consuming, but this action really needs it.

I did already turn some of the keypins myself and I also tried a key bushing tightener, but quickly came to the conclusion that I had to go to too extreme measures to get it right so I decided on this fix instead.

I also noticed that I will have to do a bit of work to align the keypins as all of them from the middle c and down are slanted a bit towards the left (maybe a previous owner liked boogie piano?). So how would you align them? By eye, or would you use a level to get them perfectly straight?

As always, thanks for your help guys

Fortunately I only did one key as in the photos, yes ...Still experimenting

I've already got the white plastic key bushing cauls. And I bought what ep-service call "fish glue". Should be good for the job. I already proved that you can remove the glue again as I fixed the key pictured above.

So my process right now is like so:

• Apply a little bit of water/alcohol mixture to the old felts.
• Heat it up with a soldering iron
• Carefuly peel out the felts with tweezers and an exacto knife
• Leave key to dry

Once the key is dry I do the following:

• Cut two piece of felt of about 9mm length.
• Apply glue about 5mm into the side of the key bushing and a little bit on top.
• I carefully position one felt on each side of the bushing (this is the tricky bit) so around 5mm is inside the bushing and 4mm folds outside the bushing.
• Having some felt outside the bushing allows me to hold both pieces of felt in place with two fingers while carefully inserting a bushing caul.
• Once I have the bushing caul is in place I use a small plastic clamp to hold the caul in place and apply a bit of pressure.
• With the clamp in place I repeat the process for the guide pin bushing.

This process seems to work. You can see the result of what seems to be my first succesful key bushing on the picture below, but I still have some questions before I start scaling this process 64 times over:

• As you can see from the picture my methods leaves a little "lip" of felt on the bottom and top side of the key - outside the bushing itself. Is that a bad idea? I find that it is difficult to cut off the felt closer to the bushing without interfering with the position of the felt while the glue is curing. But maybe I could skip cutting excess felt until it has cured and avoid applying any glue to the edges of the bushing to get it to look more like it was originally. But I kind of feel like having the felt go around the edge should make it last longer and also provide some more surface to grab when you want to remove it - but I'm really not sure about the long-term effect.
• In one of the bushings I had a little bit of glue residue on the caul when I got it out, meaning that there was probably a bit of glue on the keypin-facing side of the felt. I understand that it is probably not a good place to have glue, but is it something I should be religious about and redo the busing completely because of a tiny amount of glue or should I just make sure to let the glue cure completely before putting the keys back in?
• Does anyone know how long fish glue takes to cure?
• It's probably a bad idea to glue onto wet wood. Right now I just wanted to try stuff out, so I let the key dry for about 30min and used a blow dry it up slightly more, but I could tell from the color that the wood was still not completely dried out. Do you usually remove all of the felts on one day and then come back to glue now ones back in on another  day? Or is it overkill to wait that long?

So I am in the process of redoing the key bushings on a 200A but I'm not sure what is the best/easiest way to cut the felts.

So far I've been following this video (https://youtu.be/k_dosri4BBg?t=5m6s), but he uses a fancy "Bushmaster" tool that will cut the felts for him. How do I achieve good results without fancy tools like that?

I tried glueing new felt into one key as a trial run and my result is looking like this (see attachments). I was hoping that I could go in after the glue had settled and make a cut in the middle with an exacto knife to separate the two felt sides. I just tried this, but it does not work. The part of the felt that was in the middle is not glue to anything and is causing way too much friction.

Can you describe the clicking sound?

Maybe there is some kind of debris stuck under the key.

Thanks, Jenzz. That helped greatly. I had turned all of the way to the left thinking it was the preamp volume and given that everything was too loud (I was using the headphone jack by mistake) I was trying to turn it down.

You play vibraphone?

Congratulations with the Wurli! They are a rare find around here. The on/off button is definitely not standard. Not on 220V models either. Somebody must have replaced the volume pot and have been unable to find an original switching-type pot.

You don't need the mold to prepare tines from scratch. It does take a while to build up a solder blob without a mold, though, but as I remember there is hardly any solder on the top tines anyway, so I'm not sure the mold would be useful there.

Hi Alex ...I just realize that we know each other from when I was considering buying your '71 Suitcase. I still sometimes regret I did not go with that

Zaki

It's maybe not the cheapest option, but you could order a built-to-order flightcase and have it shipped directly to the seller. Some companies build these cases almost cheaper than what you could build the for yourself. That would give you peace in mind and you could use it for gigging later on.

The legs do screw out on the 1-series models, right?

Also, it's not something as simple as the screw being loose and rattling when it resonates with the speaker vibrations? In that case you need to secure the screw. Buzzing and rattling from loose components is quite common and could be mistaken for a distorting speaker.

Vintage Vibe just posted this nice interactive graphic to identify Wurlitzer parts:

http://www.vintagevibe.com/blogs/news/wurlitzer-200a-parts-diagrams

Nice work on their part, but what's actually more interesting to me than the graphic itself is the text where they outline the differences between 200 and 200A. Among other things they say:

"Wurlitzer updated the amplifier once again by placing the pre amp on top of the harp to reduce noise. They also used an LDR for the vibrato instead of modulating the pre amp gain with reactance modulation."

Interesting. What does LDR stand for - how is it different than modulating the gain?

When I turn up the tremolo the gain is turned up as well. Is that normal? I don't remember seeing this on my 200 while I still had the original amp in and with the Retrolinear amp some overall level is lost when turning up the tremolo (i.e. the gain is probably the same but the impression of loudness is not).

The thing is, as it is now, I can only turn the volume pot up around half-way before it starts clipping my mic preamps. In turn this means a worse signal to noise ratio and when I start using compression that results in some not so pleasant artifacts in the signal. I even have the gain trim on the PCB turned way down to the lowest setting.

I've noticed the same thing in all 200A amps. What I like about the Retrolinear amp is that it doesn't do that. It sort of caps the gain/volume/level/loudness (whatever it is) where you think it should be (not any louder than with the tremolo off).

At first I was like "oh, that's a cool feature", because even though the peaks may stay the same, once you add tremolo it appears more silent, but now I realize that they overcompensate WAY too much. It's maybe 15dB louder with tremolo engaged than without. It's allright for studio use, where you can gain stage easier, but for live use I might consider using a tremolo pedal instead.

I was going to suggest turning that trim pot down, but you already have. Are you using the headphone output or the AUX  jack? There should be another trim pot near the output jacks, have you tried turning that down?

If that doesn't help,then maybe it was modified. It sounds like you need to trim down the output at the AUX Jack. A large resistor in series with the output would help too, but a trim pot would be better if yours is missing or broken.

You're right! I had accidentally plugged it into the headphone output. Using the aux output made it much more manageable. And apparently there is a trim for the aux output as well that is not present on 200 models.

I'm surprised how loud the amp in my 200a is. It is an original amp, but it is pretty clear that it has had some work done to it in the past. It's actually pretty good in terms of noise, but I mostly use it running directly into my audio interface and the output level is way beyond line level. At least if the tremolo is on. And that is the weird thing. When I turn up the tremolo the gain is turned up as well. Is that normal? I don't remember seeing this on my 200 while I still had the original amp in and with the Retrolinear amp some overall level is lost when turning up the tremolo (i.e. the gain is probably the same but the impression of loudness is not).

The thing is, as it is now, I can only turn the volume pot up around half-way before it starts clipping my mic preamps. In turn this means a worse signal to noise ratio and when I start using compression that results in some not so pleasant artifacts in the signal. I even have the gain trim on the PCB turned way down to the lowest setting.

I see. I had long wondered why you could not adjust the sustain pedal, but as a matter of fact you can

And the reason why I did not have the problem before I started working on it was of course that it came without a sustain pedal, so I did not use it with a pedal until then.

So I recently picked up my 2nd Wurlitzer! Never thought it would go this far, but now I am apparently a collector

So this one is a '78 200A and I've been spending the past couple of evenings cleaning and regulating it. I've tightened up the action, regulated lost motion and let-off and overall it's playing really well now, excepts for one thing:

A lot of notes keep sustaining without the pedal being depressed. I lubricated all of the joins on the dampers with Protek and made sure that the springs are tight, but eventually I narrowed the issue down to the dampers coming to a rest before they actually dampen the notes. They are simply either sitting too high or the damper bar is angled too much away from the reeds. I temporarily fixed it by poking the damper felts with needles, making them grow a bit, but it has already settled the day after so I need to figure out how to lower the bar. There are these two L-shapred "hinges" that hold the damper rail on the left and the right side. I have a washer and a tooth lock wash on each side. Is this wrong? Should I remove one of them. I'm sure it was mounted like this before I started regulating and I did not have this problem then.

I know. That's how I managed to get it so close. After either applying solder or filing off solder I usually always test it in the position where the reed is pushed as close as possible to the keyboard. That means if it is too deep and I'll have to file something off and find that I filed off too much, I can usually compensate by adjusting the position of the reed. But no matter what you do it takes practice to get it right.

Yeah, I'm slowly getting pretty good at it. The first round I got within 10 cents, the 2nd round of tuning I get within 5 cents and these latest reeds that have broken I've been able to get within 2-3 cents But it gets a lot harder when you get to the upper range and I've only had reeds break in the middle range.

Just a follow-up:

Even though I was not able to break the cracked reed by hand it only managed to last for another hour or so of playing before it broke completely. So retuning it was a massive waste of time. Kind of expected, but I had to try

Right. I'm pretty sure the astroid did it 

But I came to same conclusion. If pitch had gone up it would probably have been some solder that had come off, but if it goes down it must be cracked

I ended up filing it back to pitch anyway - expecting it to break completely any time. But I managed to get it back to pitch and it sounds completely normal so it must have been a pretty mild case of cracking.

I also had problems with noise and crackles and I suspect that the cracking was enough to slightly short out the harp. This was fixed as soon as I repositioned the reed. I'm just surprised because when looking at the reed I was pretty confident there was an air gap all of the way around and when I took it out I could see no signs of cracking. I'm not surprised that it is cracked but it really puzzles me that I can't see anything and it was still able to knock off the tuning and short out the harp.

The sustain is normal when I play it, btw.

I just had one reed drop almost a semitone out of tuning. I know this often happens right before a reed breaks. But now I took it out, inspected it and could se no cracks or other signs it may have been compromised. Then tried to force it with my hands and was not able to break it.

I'm about to try retuning it to see if it would work, but I suspect it will break soon anyway. What do you think - is this normal?

Last time I took my Clavinet apart, I found that a lot of the bushings seemed too hard and did not provide the right amount of cushioning. Because I was too lazy to wait for ordering new ones I figured I might as well try lubricating them with fluid silicon. After lubricating all of them I discovered the same problem. My bushings had all swollen and did not allow the keys to travel right. I fixed it by using a blade to slice off a tiny slice off each bushing. I've been playing with that for almost a year now, but I have some new bushings in a drawer waiting for me to take it all apart again.

Yesterday I got in touch with a guy who was selling his KORG MS-10 along with a bunch of other stuff. I was really only interested in the MS-10, but when he got here he had all the stuff with him, so when I got a good price I ended up buying the MS-10 a KORG Microkontrol XL+ a bunch of cables and a bag full of old pianotuning equipment that some deceased relative had passed on to him.

I have no clue as to what most of the pianotuning equipment is, but I'm really interested in figuring out whether it is something I could use for restoring vintage ep's.

I created a Dropbox gallery and commented on the items that I have already ID'ed. I'd be very pleased if you would help me find out what the remaining items are:

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/q6a3eeffow8jeo9/AADYfQyuEGsJ-X6a_GK40kUxa

I'm planning on building an enclosure to sit underneath my Nord Stage. It is a 73 key stage, so it has organ keys and I would like to turn it into a dual manual console organ, but with the main difference that you can always leave the lower manual at home for smaller gigs. My plan is to buy a Fatar organ style keybed (look here: http://www.doepfer.de/home_e.htm) and build a flat keyboard that matches the Nord design but where the Nord can sit on top.

You could do the same, but rather than putting a keyboard on top of it, you could make the electro rack sit recessed in the case, so you would basically have rebuild a Nord Electro keyboard.

There should even be plenty of space inside the case to put equipment that you don't need to access often (say an audio interface or DI boxes).

Just a follow-up:

I ended up using reed #45 and tuning it down to #40. I tried to locate the solder blob so it was hanging over the tip of the reed in order to extend the length so it was more like if it was cut to the correct shape in the first place. I managed to make up about 2mm this way, but the result was still so-so. The reed was much quiter than the adjacent neighbours and way less sustain, but I suppose it was decent for a temporary solution.

Now I've replaced it with a new reed cut to the right size and it sounds much better. I removed the massive solder-blob that I had built up on the #45 replacement so I can resuse that for whenever a reed in that range might break.

Congratulations!

I don't think I've seen a sub $1000 Wurli posted for sale here in Denmark for years, so $50 is quite impressive!

So I have a Clavinet D6 and I've tried all kinds of measures to reduce the hum induced when used alongside other electronic equipment:

- I mounted the preamp in an aluminum housing.
- I added extra grounding points.
- I applied (and grounded) copper tape to the housing itself of the pickups.

I do have the aluminum shield under the bottom pickup, but especially the hum induced by having it on top of another keyboard is terrible, so I thought thought about different possible fixes:

- Mount an additional aluminum plate (I already have the stock aluminum shielding plate) under the instrument itself. To net screw up the alignment of the keys I thought about simply mounting it to the outside of the instrument.
- Try to build an aluminum enclosure around the pickups. Du to the nature of the instrument there would be a lot of leaks, though.

So I just tried googling about what kind of metals would be most efficient for insulating and stumbled on something interesting: EMF Paint. Apparently this stuff was designed by the military to contain radio signals within a command central, but is now being sold to consumers and coorporations who may either wish to protect their private networks or insulate their bedrooms against electro magnetic pollution.

I watched a few youtube videos and the effects seem impressive. Did anyone try something like this to shield a Clavinet?

Damn

So I ended up buying a handful of reeds from him anyway, so I have a small emergency supply, but I might have to source that #40 from somewhere else.

No I'm in Denmark, so I think my best bet for buying single reeds is ep-service.nl

I have a broken reed (#40) and some replacement reeds just came up for sale locally, making it significantly cheaper than ordering overseas from vintage vibe or similar. But he has limited supply and the closest reed he has is #45. Do you think it is realistic to tune it down 5 half steps by adding solder? I compared #45 to my broken #40 and it is about 3-4mm shorter so I'm a little worried that the strike point will be completely wrong if I just add extra solder.

What's your experiences? How far have you tuned your reeds down? I realize that it is easier to tune them up, as you could remove the solder, cut them to the right length and then build up the solder again, but the next reed he has available downwards is number #18, so that would be way too big.

It just seems like too much work and there are too many unknowns to do this major modification to an instrument that is no longer made.

I agree. As I said it was a wild idea and it was only because I thought I could do it in a reversible way I thought it could be fun, but I would not completely chop up my wonderful instrument to achieve this ...and even though it could be an excellent motivation to learn, I'm not so keen on transposing