Who's got my Wurli Sustain Pedal?

[builder]

I just picked up a 200a (to go along with my 1973 Stage + Janus) m   nhnxvbin wonderful condition for $400 but alas there in no sustain....

I can't stomach the thought of shelling out over 225 dollars for a sustain pedal...
(yeah... I say that now....)

I know evey member of this board has a spare Wurli pedal.

Can you hook a brother up

[andi85]

You can also take a pedal from a digital piano, drill a hole in it and attach a bicycle brake wire with the special Wurly adapter. Maybe you can even find a broken one - then it's even cheaper. My Wurly has exactly that solution and, although it doesn't look original it plays without troubles.

[pianotuner steveo]

Or,you can find an acoustic piano pedal ,mount it on wood,add a bike cable and a spring...

[daswans]

Or you can just spend the $225 for a quality reproduction pedal and have a complete, intact, working Wurlitzer for $625 total. Hardly a waste of money and well within the bounds of what it's worth.

[sean]

You don't really need any special "wurly adapter" at the top of the cable.  The threads inside the piano are standard 1/4"-20.  In the US, we just say "Quarter-twenty."  (Quarter inch diameter bolt with twenty threads per inch.)

A common eye bolt works well, and you can get them at any hardware store.
This gif will show you what eye mean:
http://www.boltdepot.com/images/catalog/eye-bolt-bent-wire-with-nut.gif

Tie it to a bike cable, or a guitar cable, or an old shoestring, and you can make a workable sustain pedal.  You only need about 1/4" of downward movement to operate the damper mechanism inside the wurly.  

With a couple of hours work, you can make one yourself that is road-worthy; and with a little more work, you can even make make it look respectable.  

(Young folks will do all the work, and be happy they saved 200 bucks; old farts like me will eventually realize that the 200 bucks is small compared to the weeks of fiddling around in the workshop building a replacement pedal.  Still, we both come out happy in the end.)

Good luck,

Sean
I got a Wurly 200, and a 206.
Also got three stage73 Rhodes: 1973 Mark I, 1981 Mark II, 1984 Mark V.
(I also have a Hohner Pianet T in the closet.  I believe the Pianet T action mechanism inspired Casio and Radio Shack designers.)

[sean]

Yikes!  I goofed up.  I forgot one part....

The connection to the Wurly sustain mechanism needs to be internal 1/4-20 threads.  So you need to put a "coupling nut" on top of the eye bolt.

Here is another link that shows what a coupling nut looks like:
http://www.boltdepot.com/images/catalog/coupling-nut.gif

This part is easily found in the hardware store too.

You can jam a pair of regular 1/4-20 nuts onto your eye bolt to create a stop that prevents the coupling nut from moving around much.

Sorry about forgetting this part of the design.  I guess you might have to make another trip to the hardware store.  

Sean

[Swatkins]

Builder (original poster):

I have an original Wurlitzer 200 sustain pedal I am willing to sell, if you would rather not construct one yourself.
I just sent you a pm, check your inbox.

Thanks