refurbashing rhodes, harp question with pics

[abrokenframe]

Hello,

This is my first post, and my first Rhodes.  This particualar rhodes is in pretty bad condition and i am determined to bring i back to life.  It was formaly owned by Patrick Moraz of The moody BLues and Yes.  Everything is pretty rusted and im in the process of cleaing everything as much as possible.  My biggest concern is the wood on the pickup side of the harp is falling apart as you can see in this photo set if you cycle through them.  My question is, has anyone ran into this problem?  were you able to fix it or construct a new one?  I was considering taking it off and trying to put some wood glue in between the layers of wood and then clamping it off to dry.  Any advice or discussion would be great!  I really like the info on this forum and plan to get more involved with it

here's the photo set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27747316@N06/3307256321/in/photostream/

Thanks  for looking guys!

Ryan

[Rob A]

Yeah the pickup rail is delaminating something awful.

Keep one eye on ebay, it seems like these come up sometimes.

The rusty pins in the front rail look like a major effort too.  

[sean]

I have a damaged keybed that had a tragic past, and had rusty balance rail pins and rusty guide rail pins, and I was determined to see if I could bring it back to life, so...  

Since the pins are already rusted, and the nickel plating is already trashed, I didn't feel like I had to be gentle about removing the rust.

I took some sandpaper and re-inforced it with packing/strapping adhesive tape (glass fibre reinforced tape), then I cut the sandpaper into 1/2" to 3/4" wide strips.  I used 120-grit, 220-grit, 400-grit, and 600-grit sandpaper.

I then sat down and tried to polish all the pins using the "shoe-shine method."

What a pain in the... pain in the... well, what a mess.

In a few minutes, I raised a good cloud of rust dust, and made a mess of the work area and the keybed.  After about an hour of work, I had about four or five nice clean smooth pins.  I lowered my standards, and continued to work.

It took a few days of intermittent work, but eventually I got the pins mostly-clean, and decided to give up.  I then had to vacuum and wipe the whole area and keybed clean repeatedly.  I wiped the pins clean with silicone oil (hoping that would prevent future rust).

The finished job looks nothing like new, and is not anything to be proud of, but it is functional.  There are visible scratches on most of the pins, but no noticable binding against the felt key bushings.

--------   Don't use a Dremel:    --------
I did try using a dremel tool on a few of the pins, but I quickly determined that the dremel is too aggressive.  The dremel can make significant gouges, pits, and grooves in the pins.  The high-speed rotating action and tight spacing of the pins make it easy to bonk into the wrong surfaces.

[Clavier]

Pat Moraz, huh? What's the story here, did he play a gig in a rainstorm?  

What a legacy, though. Wow!

Best of luck.

[abrokenframe]

Thanks for the replies.  I know what you mean about those pins!  I first tried scotchbrite but quickly got over that and am now sanding them.  The truth is I really don't expect it to look new. I just want it to function and sound good.  I really don't have a timeframe on it either because there is so much work to be done.  I swear the things been sitting in a pool for the last ten years its so rusted!  My main concerns are the little red wires that run up the pickups because there is rust on them and will be hard to clean gently (though they all seem to work), some really eroded tines, and the harp wood.  From the outside, it doesn't look that bad (minus the tolex).  All the keys are in decent shape and so is the harp cover.  How much does the plating on the tonebars affect the sound?  Ill keep you guys updated with pics if you are interested.

[abrokenframe]

Haha supposedly, the guy I bought it off of played with him in the early 90's and he ended up with it somehow.  Ill find the whole story out more.  He still has the legs and I need to pick them up soon.

[sean]

Re-plating, spray painting, or even a little bondo on the tone bars will not affect the sound.

You can prove this to yourself by sticking a hunk of bubble gum or whatever to a few tonebars.  Play a little, and you won't notice a difference in tone (and I can't detect a change in sustain either).

You can sandblast the tonebars, sand them down, acid wash them, or just leave them the way they are.

If they don't look too bad, the best idea I have heard is to simply spray them with clear Krylon acrylic or polyurethane spray.  I guess you could also choose silver, blue, and gold.

If you have a gear fetish (duh, we all do), or a metal fetish, then re-plating is the way to go.  It is probably about the same cost as finding a new set on ebay, but I would love to have shiny chrome or nickel tonebars.  For some reason, I also like the idea of copper plated tonebars (gold plated tone bars just wouldn't look right... well, maybe).

If you know the folks that do re-plating work, I think you should give them the tonebar mounting springs to dip in the copper bath as well.  (Chrome plating is still done in layers, right?  Don't they do a layer of copper and then a layer of nickel, and then the final coating of chrome?)

The springs might not be the best substrate for plating, but it would probably work well enough, and it would look "totally wicked," i.e., "cool."

(Truthfully, I must admit that I am too lazy to do all this.  I would probably just try to snag another Rhodes and swap out the harp.)

[robertjkeil]

Sounds like a project, but a cool one...

I've tried the Scotchbrite on my tines and pickups and there's just too much rust to make any real progress. What grit sandpaper do you recommend? Thanks for any advice!