Hard to depress rhodes sustain pedal. HELP!

[ursomyrhodes]

It is very difficult to depress the sustain pedal on my early 70's Mark I and I cannot figure out why.  Where is the tension coming from?

[Rob A]

This is a pretty common issue, and dead easy to fix.

Most likely, the pins on either end of the damper release bar have slipped out of the holes in the harp support blocks that they fit into, so the bar won't move freely.

Open her up, raise the harp, then look at each end of your aluminum damper release bar. It will probably have one end where the pin is sticking out and visible. You ought to be able to seat it back ion the holes, then a spring holds it more or less in place (less in your case).

This happens when you move a piano.

Way back in my misspent youth I fixed our high school jazz band's stage piano which was borked like this--it had gotten rattled in the bus on the drive up to the festival we were playing. We found out abut ten minutes before we had to go on stage, but it was easy to fix once I got hold of a philips driver to undo the harp mounting screws. Crisis averted.

[ursomyrhodes]

Hi Rob,
Thanks for the response.  I, too, caught the rhodes bug during high school jazz band! 
I can't say that the pins had fallen out of the action rail.  Everything seems to be in its right place.  The tension on the pedal just seems heavier than on other rhodes. 
How should the center damper pin be adjusted?  Does that have an effect on damper tension?

 

[Ben Bove]

If Rob's suggestion doesn't work it could be other things... what year is your piano?  The date stamp should be in the upper right hand corner of the wood harp, provided it didn't fade away.  Just so we know what we're dealing with - and also it's a stage model with the pedal and rod - not the suitcase mode with the rod in the cabinet right?

Other possibilities - your piano is an earlier model with the sustain rail that has the hole in the middle of it, and a "T" screw that balances the center pressure.  The screw needs to be tightened in the center or it's missing completely, and possibly the low and high registers are sustaining before the middle register does as a result.

The dowel that interacts between the sustain rod and the rail is slowing movement - maybe a little lubricant on the felts (accessible when you remove the sustain bar) or other visual issues with the dowel.

are there plastic bushings where both the pivot pins are for the sustain rail?

[ursomyrhodes]

Thank you for your post, Bjammerz.

Yes, all of those things.  It has plastic bushings, the T pin is intact and set properly, and the dowel moves freely.

We're talking about a 1974 Stage model.  It really seems that the tension is coming from the damper arms.  It's very hard to move the damper rail and it seems to be due to simply the tension on from the damper arms, but it seems excessive compared to other rhodes I've played. 

[Ben Bove]

Then I would start lubricating everything. 

I would remove the sustain rail, and pull out the dowel in the middle and lubricate both felts with either a teflon powder, silicon spray or even whatever you have like a WD-40 etc.

You can also lubricate the felt strip that runs the sustain rail, that contacts the damper felts.  This might help pushing the dampers if you feel that could be the problem.

WD-40 is a good lubricant for the metal pins, I would hit the pivot pins on the sides and the t-screw because technically that rotates a bit.

One of those pieces should lighten things up.

[ursomyrhodes]

bjammerz,

great idea with lubricating the felt strip that contacts the dampers.  I never thought there may be friction there.  I'll try that and post the results! 

[Chris Carroll]

Also, you may find a spring attached to the damper rail, this allows easy return after let off- The early Fender Rhodes Damper rails are just badly designed, I tend to replace them with the later style. Some smalls mods are sometimes necessary- On our new pianos we changed relations to fulcrum and pivot points and have a feather weight touch sustain mechanism. (Really your cat could sustain our piano)-  Even removal of spring, use of lubricants and such will only help to a degree, they are inherently designed poorly-

[shmulik]

Hi all,

I was working on the insides of a Rhodes (not mine, but one at the music school where I work) and I removed the spring that hooks onto the middle of the damper release bar.

I then found that the screw on the center damper pin (in the middle of the release bar) was corroded and did not want to move. Thus, I can't remove the damper release bar and for now the spring is lost underneath.

Quadrapuss above alluded to removal of that spring. I know that it regulates the resistance you get when depressing the sustain pedal and the return of the pedal/dampers to normal position. But how necessary is it? Will we get by with that spring detached (for a while or for good, if that corroded screw doesn't start to behave) without there being problems pedaling?

Thanks for any input.

[Ben Bove]

There shouldn't be any problem without the spring... it only aids a little bit in returning the bar back to rest.

You may want to soak that T screw in the middle with WD-40 to start freeing it up.  Don't force it if it's not moving, breaking the screw off is a pain.  Then again - as long as the low and high dampers are depressed the same as the middle register, then the screw could be left alone.  It needs adjusting when the low and high dampers start engaging faster, and the mid register doesn't go down because the bar is bowing in the middle.

[JC]

I found the little spring. It is attached at the bottom end. Where does it attach at the top? I don't see a hole or an attach point on the damper rail.

[Ben Bove]

There is no actual point of attach on the damper rail - it just hooks on top.