I always wanted to have a Rhodes Piano, after playing with digital models in Ableton (Soniccouture’s EP and Wurlizer) I bought a Korg SV-1 but shortly after I knew I need the real deal.
I bought a Rhodes Mark II from Ebay, a Model practically the same like a Mark I, just with a Mark II Nameplate. I have wooden keys, red-wire pickups….The model is dated 1985.
The piano’s story: It was bought from a guy in Pennsilvania by Jörg Krückel’s Talkin’ Rocket Studio and was used for recording sessions until it landed on Ebay.
The state was pretty much good, only some minor rust. The hammer-heads and dampers needed to be changed since they were worn out and the hammer-tips had groves from the tines. Also all the tonebar’s grommets and screws needed to be replaced since the plastic was worn out and the screws were twisted, making the tine adjustment a nightmare. The keyboard action needed some work to play lighter. All the bridle straps are still in good working condition.
I documented all the steps I took to restore the piano to help maintaining information and tips for repairing rhodes-pianos. This is the journey of my restoration process.
Keyboard Action
First I tested how the keys behave when lifing or pressing them slightly to see if they stay in that position or if they move back to their normal position.
Humidity and dirt may change this behaviour.
It is a pretty easy fix.
1. Remove the cover and the faceplate so that all your keys are accessible.
2. Remove all Keys from the keybed and place them side by side so that you still know the order, you can also do this in steps of octaves if you have not a lot room.
3. Buy a silicone spray, go outside (you do not want that silicone sprayed near your keyboard or it turns to garbage and will never be in tune again), now spray a teaspoon of silicone into a container. You may wear a mask while doing this since silicone stays in your lungs and clugs them!
4. Back to your Rhodes take a brush and brush some silicone on each pole where your keys were mounted on.
5. Place the keys back on the poles and check the behaviour of each one. Lift and depress them and check if they come back do normal position.
If the key are still stuck, use a key-bushing tool and adjust the felts on each key.
This procedure is well worth the time and also helps clean out some dust and other remainings you may find in your Rhodes.
What you can also check during this procedure:
1. Check the felts and felt-pads under the keys, exchange them with felts of the same height.
2. Clean the keybed with a vacuum cleaner
3. Clean all the keys with a slightly wet cloth, only apply the cloth to the plastic coating and not on the wood. The wood would suck in all the humidity and you’ll need to dry them before continuing.
4. Check the wood and remove splinters that touch other keys
Getting Parts For Your Rhodes
After inspecting your Rhodes, make a list of items that need to be replaced. The hunt for parts starts.
You can find parts on eBay, a lot of original Rhodes parts are from stripped down Rhodes pianos. People take old, not restorable Pianos apart and sell tines, keys and so on. Sometimes you get a good deal, sometimes a second look on the item and price is worth the wait for a better deal.
Then there are commercial shops. I bought my replacement parts from vintagevibe, mostly because I want to thank them for their excellent free Rhodes-repair videos on YouTube. Their part list is also pretty much complete (good for saving oversea shipping costs). Since Vintage Vibe also produces their own Tine-based Pianos, you can’t go wrong. I also ordered their Stereo-Vibe Preamp that makes total sense in the way they integrate the power supply and an effect loop in the Rhodes-Cheek-Box.
Here a list of all suppliers, information-bases and repair-shops I found, let me know who I missed. I try to edit this post from time to time to add more contacts.
INFORMATION
Fender Rhodes Super Site
Vintage Vibe Tech Tip Videos
Vintage Vibe Tech Manuals
Vintage Vibe Tech Tips
PARTS
Europe:
Knox, Official Major Key Distributor Germany
EP-Service, Netherlands
Fender Rhodes Service Amsterdam, Netherlands
USA:
Vintage Vibe
Major Key
CAE Sound
Speakeasy Vintage (Heard some bad things according restoration fees, the owner recently died, the shop seems to be closed…)
REPAIR-SHOPS
Repairshops in Europe:
Taste und Technik, Germany
Rhodes Keyboards, Germany
Electric-Piano-Service, Germany
Rhodes Italia, Italy
Vintage Music Service, Italy
Switzerland:
Budig
Dorf 93
5708 Birrwil
Häfeli Severin
saxo@deteil.ch
Audiodesign
Chris Heule
multenrain 28
5037 Muhen
info@audio-design.biz
www.audio-design.biz
Choosing your tools for Rhodes repair
For a Rhodes repair/adjustment you don’t need a lot of expensive tools, a basic set as follows is sufficient:
Most important tools:
- 1/4 Nut driver
- 5/16 Nut driver
- #2 Cross driver
- Key bushing tool
Good to have:
- Rechargeable Drill with interchangeable Drillbits
- Flat Metal File
- Opt. Proxxon or Dremel Tool
- A Plane or Sandpaper (To adjust your wooden Harp supports if they are too high)
Cleaning Utils:
- Scotch Brite
- Silicon spray
- Windex/Ajax
- A thin brush
- Vacuum Cleaner
For the “Deluxe Super Pimping” (The golden Harp):
- A Grinder or Musclepowered Sandingpaper
- Spraypaint grounding color for Aluminum
- 2K Gold-Metalic-Car color spray
- 2K Clear Coating Spray
For the “Beyond the Universe Pimping” (Custom Faceplate)
- A Laser-Cutter to engrave Eloxed Aluminum
- Tablepress
These were all the Tools I used for my Project.
Your Rhodes Workbench
One of the ingenious invention of the Rhodes Piano is its modularity. The design comes to help when you take the Rhodes apart.
If you have not a lot room to do your work on the Rhodes, take advantage of the following trick.
Loosen all the Screws that hold your Keybed attached to the Case and remove the whole Keybed/Harp Assembly, put the Lid on the Case and close it. Now put the Keybed/Harp Asssembly on the closed Case, voila, you’ve got yourselve a Rhodes-workbench to do all your work in a pleasant height.
Most common Parts to replace
After an inspection of your Rhodes Piano you find out what needs to be done and what you better leave as it is. There are some things you NEED to change though.
Tonebar-Screws and Grommets
Most common you’ll need a new set of Tonebar-Screws and Grommets. The Grommet’s plastic is hard and most likely cracked because of its age. Back in the times the used Tonebar-Screws were not of high quality and through potentialy multiple adjustments over the years became twisted. Trying to adjust your Tonebars with twisted screws is really NO FUN AT ALL! Don’t save money on this, do yourselve the favor and buy a new set of Grommets and Tonebar-Screws, it’s worth every penny and also improves the sound (sustain).
You may also find that you want to replace hammertips and/or damperfelts.
Damperfelts
Inspect your damperfelts by first visually inspecting them, then by touching and squeezing them. If they are not firm or not keep their form, replace them.
Damper Strips
You may find that your old Damper Strips are quite deformed and do not keep their form. Replace them with new ones that have been reengineered to be stronger and hold their form.
Your Dampers should be positioned so that they do not interfere with the oscillating Tines or touch the Pickups. When you use the sustain Pedal, all Dampers should be equally released. When pressing a Key, the Damper’s Distance to the oscillating Tine should be just enough so that it does not touch the Time.
Check what kind of Dampers you have got on your Rhodes Piano. Older Models have one Strip per Key, newer ones have an Octave-Comb that is connected to each other to save work. I had a Comb originally but after a little bit of drilling I replaced them with singles. It was a bit of work but gives more control.
Hammertips
Check your Hammertips for deep groves that the Tines left over the years of playing. Such Tips are not producing a nice tone anymore. Replace them and be surprised how much better it feels.
Bridle Straps
Surprisingly the Bridle Straps in my Rhodes were still strong and looked like new. If they are loose they lost tension over time or were not installed correctly at factory, replace them! Do not glue them to the Damper Strip, just mount them on the Strip’s tongue.
Pickups
Try slightly touching your Pickup’s Magnets with a screwdriver to check which ones may not work anymore. If you find one that produces no signal, cut the two wires of the non working pickup and measure the resistance. A good pickup measures a resistance of about 180 Ohms. If it shorts, you may have to rewire or replace it.
There are some web services that rewire sent in pickups for you.
Disassembly of a Fender Rhodes Mark II: 01 Removing the Harp, Hammers and Dampers
Here I go through how I disassembled my Rhodes Mark II.
1. Take off the hood ;)
2. Unscrew the Harp so that you are able to remove the whole Harp at once
3. Start loosing the Bridle-Straps off the Dampers and remove the Hammers and the Dampers.
Disassembly of a Fender Rhodes Mark II: 02 Removing the Damper-Rail and Harp-Support
- Remove the Damper-Rail by unscrewing the Screws that hold it on the Sides
2. Enjoy the nearly naked Rhodes and then remove the two wooden Blocks on the sides that held the Harp
Disassembly of a Fender Rhodes Mark II: 03 Removing the Tone-Bars
Either put the Harp on your new “Rhodes-Workbench” or on a “real” Table and start disassembling the Tonebars, Keep everything in Order (Save the screws in a box, line the Tonebars up….), it saves you time later and you make sure you won’t loose anything.
Cleaning the Pickups
Clean the Pickup-Front using a Dremel or do it by hand. MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT TOUCH THE WIRING WITH YOUR TOOL!!! Also a remark, this procedure may leave some metal residue that may be catched by the magnets. Remove them by Hand!
Assembly of a Fender Rhodes Mark II: 01 Assembling the Tonebars on the Harp
This Part is important since it sets the Base of how well your Tonebars will vibrate and sound later.
You may use your existing screws and Grommets in Case the still look good. I recomend to invest in new ones.
Clean your Tonebars and Tines, use scotchbrite or a very light sanding paper to do that.
I disassembled, cleaned and reassembled them. Make sure you do not loose the little springs attached to the Tines.
After some cleaning of the Tonebars and the Tines organize your Rhodes Assembly line. I have bought new grommets and screws from Vintage Vibe to replace my old ones where the screws were twisted and most grommets looked too squeezed and crackly.
- Prepare the Screws, apply the Grommets so that you save some time later.
2. Inspect your Tines. If the Tips look nibbled or uneven, the Sound will not be that nice. So, take your Dremel, File or Sandpaper and make the Rhodes Tine-Tip nice and Flat.
3. Start screwing on the Tonebars in an even way. You might use the Aluminum Tine-Holder as Distance holder to get all Tonebars to a even Height.
At this point I did not adjust the Height or Position of the Tonebars yet. I did it later while tuning and setting the Distance and Position of the Tines to the Pickups.
Renewing the Hammer-Tips of your beloved Rhodes Piano
After all those years since your Rhodes Piano has been build, after all those who played, smoked and made love on it, your Hammers may need some love too. The Rubber may have disintegrated already and since the Hammer is hitting the Tine it is very important for the sound of your Rhodes Piano to keep them working well.
Here is how I renewed the Hammers. I have bought new Hammers from Vintage Vibe, you’ll get them nicely packaged for each section of your Piano. For gluing ’em on I used Pattex Powerglue, something I had access to here in Switzerland. It is basically a rubber contact cement glue. Put some glue on both, the Hammertip and the Plastic of the hammer, wait a moment and then press them together.
You need to remove the old Hammertips first. Since they are old, they may come off quite easy with a bit of wiggling using pliers. Make sure you remove all the residue of rubber or glue that may still stuck on your hammer.
The Hammer-Tips come in various sizes, depending on their section over the 73 Keys. Check out the Instructions of your supplier to find out what Tips go where.
Now you just wait until the glue has cured and you have some brand new funky Hammer Tips ready to make love to the Tines.
That’s it for now. In my next article, the Rhodes will get some Gold. I hope you enjoyed the process so far and found the information helpful.