Hammer Probs Stage 1976

[andi85]

Hi Rhodes-lovers!

While doing some minor repairs today I noticed that three hammers in my piano are developing some cracks. As indented above, my piano is a 1976 Stage 73 with all-plastic hammers and the key pedestal felts on the lower side of the hammers. The worst one is No. 67, the highest Bb, No. 14 (F) and No. 19 (Bb) are showing less cracks.

Well, I started some research, found the advice in Steve's corner and one reply from Freddan here in the forum.

Ok, according to Steve's Corner I disassembled the piano as far as possible - harp, front rail, keys, dampers
(as far as I could loosen the screws) - and checked all the screws that hold the parts together.

All of them are sitting tight:
The 5 huge screws in the alloy action rail,
the screws that hold the balance rail and the front rail,
the screws holding the hammer modules (I also couldn't loosen some of them),
the screws holding the harp support from the case bottom are bent backwards a bit, but are tight
the screws holding the front rail from the case bottom
- everything is sitting tight.
The hammers don't show anything irregular. All of them can be moved about 2mm to each side.

I can also move the front rail and also (slightly) the balance rail. In the thread mentioned above, Freddan recommended driving some screws into them to secure the rails properly. I'll do that tomorrow. Does that solve the problem so far or is there anything else I've got to do?

Thanks for your help,

Andi, who needs a BIG beer now.

You know I don't care about replacing (or glueing if possible) three hammers, but I don't want the others to start as well.


EDIT: One thing I noticed right now: All my keys are slightly tilted to the left side. Can this cause problems like mine? Because that means that the key pedestal is also tilted when pushing the hammer.

[Ben Bove]

almost every rhodes that has a key tilt problem is to the left.  i think it's from all that awful hand sliding at wedding gigs from top to bottom.  

[andi85]

Yes, the wedding gigs...
So what do you think, does that seem like a problem of the piano chassis? If so it should be done with some screws tightening the front & balance rail to the case bottom.

[andi85]

So today I got a message from Jens Lüpke saying that my problems could be caused by the tilted keys. Ok, so I straightened them as well as I could. It isn't fully perfect, but better than before.

Somehow the action rail seems to be a about 2mm or so off-center to the keys. Maybe that's also not so comfortable for my hammers.
Has anybody experiences with that kind of misalignment?

Thanks!

Andi

[jim]

theres a section about action rail inspection in the tech tips section that i found very useful for my 1980 rhodes,
i ended up changing the hammer to ped relationship and it serously made me love an instrument i previously didn't like playing much.
this section should help with the alignment issues.

[andi85]

Ok, thanks, I'll check that!