Restoring action

[John Brevik]

Hi, all,

I have a 1973 Stage 73. The previous owner seems to have modified the action heavily -- for one thing, there is a big gap between the keys and the upstop felt (hope that's the right term -- the felt strip under the namerail), resulting in, among other things, a very small key dip. I checked into it, and I found a couple of things. First, the keybed felt consists of two strips. Just as a calibration, they are each just as thick as one of the felt punchings on the balance rail, or just under 1/8 inch. Said balance rail has no paper punchings, only the felt ones.

I'm interested in just getting it back close to stock and going from there. I experimented by stacking two felt punchings on one guide pin, and that key's action seemed much better, but of course I could have achieved a similar effect by removing one of the felt strips from the back. Am I correct that there should only be one felt strip on the keybed? Also, are there typically paper punchings on the balance rail, or should I wait and see whether the piano needs them?

Thanks as always,

John

[jim]

have you sussed out whether the namerail is at the hight it should be? i have seen namerails with shims under the ends.
just thought i'd throw that in there.

[hrees]

That is correct. You can set key dip with felt strips under the back of the keys. You will find that the distance under the namerail is reduced by removing one of the felt strips. The manual has the right measurement for key dip.

[John Brevik]

Thanks for the replies. Yes, the namerail is in the right place. I abbreviated my first post for clarity, but the keys slope noticeably downward toward the player, so I was pretty sure I'd need either to reduce the felt at the keybed or build it up on the balance rail -- and doubling the thickness on the balance rail didn't seem right to me! So I guess I'm on the right track.

I think the previous owner wanted a reeeeeallly light action and tried to do this by building up the back felt and torquing down the tines way too far. The poor damper felts on the treble end now look like upside-down V's as a result.

Thanks again for the input.

[atraintocry]

they could have been trying to speed up their repetition by absorbing more of the key bounce. most likely a little of both.

[jim]

that upside down v is a normal thing for a rhodes of that era. they used to have a little split in them.

[John Brevik]

that upside down v is a normal thing for a rhodes of that era. they used to have a little split in them.

Good info -- thanks a million!

[John Brevik]

OK, for those of you still tuned in, I have another question or two.

Per the excellent advice of hrees et al, I went ahead and removed the top keybed felt, which was obviously a homebrew thing stapled on top of the stock one. Now my key dip is close to the desired 3/8" but still a little on the low side, maybe or maybe not within the 1/32" tolerance given in the manual. atraintocry also knows more than that it takes a lot to laugh, because now the keys are bouncy.

I promise I'm getting to the question.

The hammers also bounce, and I can't really tell whether to classify this as "hammer bounce" or "key bounce"; the remedies are different. My suspicion, however, is that the bouncing hammers are causing the bouncing keys. Which is good, because if I tried to solve the key-bounce problem by building up the keybed felt, I'd be back where I started. On the other hand, the key pedestal felts look pretty darn good to me, so I'm not sure what to suppose is causing the hammer bounce.

However, there is still a bit of a gap between the keys and the namerail felt. My instinct would be to buy some punchings and stick them on the balance rail, to raise them up to that felt (and maybe increase key dip that last teensy bit), but maybe a gap is OK? Would closing the gap help solve my bouncing problem? I would think it would, but there's no mention of this in the manual or in any of the forum topics I could find.

OK, thanks much for your indulgence! The action is much improved already, and I'm very grateful for your help.

John

[jim]

i don't know if this came up, but how are your key bushings? sometimes this can account for a lot of key and then hammer bounce.

[John Brevik]

i don't know if this came up, but how are your key bushings? sometimes this can account for a lot of key and then hammer bounce.

They certainly look fine to me, but that's also good info -- and if this stuff exists in the manual, I apologize for wasting people's time, but I did look! I guess I'm not clear on their function -- is it really to damp the motion of the keys? I had thought they were there to make the keys slide smoothly and avoid wearing/splintering the wood.

In fact, the action is suspiciously light for a 1973 model, so the bushing theory would explain a lot. Thanks again -- more to do, I suppose!

John

[atraintocry]

You're right about the bushings, but the action on the Rhodes is such that everything is interconnected. I'm in the same position as you. I'm going to try the following on mine. I can't say for sure how effective all of this will be.

- Slightly tighter bushings. I have a feeling that there is a sweet spot where the bushings prevent some bounce but aren't tight enough to impact the action otherwise.
- Thicker felt under the namerail.
- Thicker backrail felt. As you've seen, this comes at a cost. But I'm not going to do a hack job...I took off the regular one and I'm going to put a piano one in. They're slightly thicker. I'm getting a few different ones to try out.

If you're wondering, I measured the stock backrail cloth on mine at about .070 inches thick. If you are taking the keys out, you should use a stiff brush to clean & fluff it.

One way to adjust the bushings is to turn the front guide pins a little bit for the loosest keys. You can try this as well, although in the long run it will wear your bushings out more. A key bushing tightener is another "solution" in the same vein.

The deal with the balance rail punchings is that they sort of impact everything. So when you add or remove punchings don't do it blindly, but keep checking the action of the key.
- Too high: the key stops going down as much, because the hammer is held at a fixed height.
- Too low: Action gets weaker, because the hammer is not getting swung to its full angle.
So set the height to something reasonable, then use thinner ones to make sure the keys are even with one another.

[John Brevik]

OK, thanks for a very informative reply. I've ordered a bushing kit, since they are more worn than I had first thought.

A couple of things: Am I correct in assuming that
1) the keys should touch that namerail felt
2) it's ok to set, rather than merely leveling out, key hight with punchings on the balance rail?

Also, very stupid question: Can the stiff-bristled brush be anything? A toothbrush, for example?

Thanks again,

John

[atraintocry]

i haven't seen any sort of fixed suggestion on how high the keys should sit on the balance rail. i think it will just take some experimentation.

unless someone else has better advice? i'd love to hear some numbers but short of that i'm just going to be experimenting. higher is probably better than lower as far as action is concerned. for instance, most of my keys had an amount of punchings that was roughly equivalent to what's on the front rail guide pins in terms of height. if your key dip is close to 3/8", you're most of the way there.

my keys touch the namerail felt, and this is true on probably every acoustic piano i have played, as well as the digital keyboards that have felt.

really, it's just going to take some experimentation, with your two goals being good key dip and good hammer throw.

brushing the backrail felt isn't really necessary, just a suggestion...it just made it a little cleaner and fluffier, and it was a lot of fun i used a metal wire brush. i doubt a toothbrush is going to do much.

good luck with the key bushings...i think i'm going to avoid that one myself, for the time being. don't be surprised if you have to "ease" your new bushings a bit...stuck keys are common on the mk1.

[morayeel]

Hi all. I am brand new to the site and to Rhodes repair. I have a manual and have searched the forum but can't figure out exactly what a key bushing is. Yes I am embarassed.
I am trying to lighten my action, surprise surprise. Does anyone recommend the sticky tape on pedestal mod over the key bushing mod? And about sticky tape, 1) where would it go? Over the felt? 2) What is meant by "sticky"? Shouldn't it be non-sticky for less friction/smoother action?

[Ben Bove]

Jim is the bushing God!

[John Brevik]

Hi all. I am brand new to the site and to Rhodes repair. I have a manual and have searched the forum but can't figure out exactly what a key bushing is. Yes I am embarassed.
I am trying to lighten my action, surprise surprise. Does anyone recommend the sticky tape on pedestal mod over the key bushing mod? And about sticky tape, 1) where would it go? Over the felt? 2) What is meant by "sticky"? Shouldn't it be non-sticky for less friction/smoother action?

Key bushings are the felt bushings inside the holes on the keys that fit around the guide pins.

What we were discussing was not a modification of the bushings but the replacement of bushings that are worn out. I don't think you should mess with the bushings as a method of lightening action.

I'm not sure about "sticky tape," but there is a mod to the key pedestal that involves removing the felt, putting a little bump of plastic close to the near end of the pedestal, and then covering it with felt. If you do a "search" from the forum's main page, you'll see lots and lots of postings about this.

I think the best place to start in your quest for improved action, though, is the "Remedies for Stiff Action" here:

http://www.fenderrhodes.com/service/technotes.php

Good luck!

[GW]

I "finished" my 78 suitcase action project. My problem was that the hammer would not strike the tine unless the key was pressed in a fast action, to get the hammer to swing far enough.

I noticed that if I tightened the screws on the tonebar grommets that it improved the bass key's action, (the treble keys had fair action).  I didn't think that bottoming out the screws was a good idea, as it squashed the rubber grommets. I removed the 1/8" shim from the bass end tone bar assembly, and also tightened the grommet screws, (around an 1/8 inch lower also), This solved its action problem. Most of the out of line parts sounded better when they were put in a similar position with their neighbors, but the tone of each was given individual judgement, so there were exceptions. I even had to leave one pickup's screw loose to keep it from being an octave too high, after several attempts to position it to make it sound the proper lower octave note. It will only make the proper note with the screws left loose.

I "straightened out" the pickup positions after the above operations. Now it can be played with a delicate touch, and without odd sounding or keys that are too quiet, loud or no distortion when played hard.  Lucky me, I was able to leave the rest alone.

This piano had been a rental before I bought it in the mid 80s for $350 and appears to have had some work done to it, and a lot of rough treatment.  I wonder if the shims were factory. The treble side would be too close if I had been able to remove that shim also. I stripped the screw  head, (cheap allen wrench), holding the aluminum frame down on the treble end or I might have messed up that end, by lowering it also. I propped the bass end up to remove the shim, and could have used a few more inches, to get at the glue, but the bending of the assembly didn't seem to hurt it. I was able to reuse the holes, which may have been changed when the shims were added, since there were other unused holes in the aluminum frame. Removing the glue was the most difficult part, but nail polish remover and a chisel for a scraper helped.

I had watched the Utube instructions, which helped me understand the pickup adjustment, but I'm glad I saved that step until last, or I would have had to do it twice.

I adjusted the sustain rod with a few turns to get it level to the amp's case, which solved it's not working after removing the bass shim, (and made me think I'd ruined the piano, until after the rod adjustment), and luckily the action is now a pleasure to play. There's a couple of bent tines, which affect the pickup sound, but I'm afraid they'll break if I try to bend them back. Oh well, if all the keys sounded perfectly matched it would sound like a sample from a regular keyboard.

I'm now interested in reducing the bell like ring of the mid to treble notes. It sounds too much like an xylophone, but that's probably due to the rubber tips, and the tone does sound like the one used by Chick Corea in later years. Now if I could learn a few songs......

GW

[Ben Bove]

the only way to get rid of bell-like sound on a 78 suitcase (being that it probably has all schaller bell-like tines) would be to adjust the tone for a more overtone sound (just under half overtone half fundamental) and sliding the pickups much closer to the tines.  Otherwise it's tough to rectify that, especially with the factory bump mod on the 78 year keys.

[jim]

sticky tape mod:

for models with felt on hammers action, put sticky tape on the key pedestals, this gives you more slippery slide.

the people at dyno used to do it. it's really good.

[GW]

Thanks, for the response. I did move the pickups up very close, and you are right, that the tone is more funky that way, especially when I play aggressively.

I hope I didn't bore anyone, by such a long post, and hope I did not interupt this thread too much. I would have never tried to improve the piano if not for this great site and these threads. I have probably spent more time here than I did working on the project. I felt obligated to post my success. I know that I was lucky that there was only one out of tune key, and that removing a shim made it play soft notes without banging at the keys.

I had thought that the speakers were bad until I read to check for a  corroded RCA cable end, which is when I tried lowering a pair of grommet screws. This one improved key action led to me  noticing  the plywood shim, which I had read about.

It's a wonder that I didn't ruin the piano, and I really should have taken it to a pro.

I just wanted to give credit to this site for providing the info that made it possible for me to try, and encourage others that a full restoration may not be the only hope for a bad sounding and playing Rhodes.

I have great respect for those who do a full restoration. I look forward to hearing mine played by good pianists.

GW

[morayeel]

Thanks to all for the pointers. In my case, the felt is on the key pedestals, and not the plastic hammers. Here's a question: are there any recommended lubricants ( for the felts ) other than Elmer's Slide-All and Sprayon S01324? I can't find either product here in Vancouver, BC, but I believe I can find a silicone spray in general.

[atraintocry]

sticky tape mod:

for models with felt on hammers action, put sticky tape on the key pedestals, this gives you more slippery slide.

the people at dyno used to do it. it's really good.

i lightly sanded mine, for much the same reason. tape is probably has less of a risk of messing up the height of the pedestal. though i haven't noticed any difference there, i sanded very little and very fine, and hit with teflon. they're pretty slippery now.

morayeel, you should be able to get either teflon or graphite, if not in a spray can, then in a little jar or tube. i'd be surprised if there was a hardware store somewhere that sold locks but not graphite, which you need to lubricate the lock. talc will work too, though probably not as nicely. also, having moving parts that are clean & dry will get you 3/4 of the way there. in the area of bushings, it's the fit that's most important, lubrication won't help a bad bushing or crooked pin.

downside of graphite is that it's dark. not a big deal though, you're not really going to see it anyway.

if you do find some spray-all, keep it away from the plastic hammers. they don't get along.

[morayeel]

Thanks for that atraintocry!

Now I'm starting to wrap my head around this a bit more. I love the Rhodes so much, I assumed that what I use to lubricate the felts had to be highly specialized. If other equivalent sprays work as well ( for instance, I hadn't heard about graphite till now ), then maybe I can take a chance.

Off to the hardware store!