my friend mike b just bought this 1976 mark 1 rhodes a few days ago. i was excited to open it up and work on it because i've never done it and there's always something exciting about knowing you could break the whole thing at any minute. here i am opening this thing up and removing amp.


step two is peeling away the hard exterior to get to the fleshy fruit inside.



i think the most important part of working on a vintage instrument is cleaning out the inside. you always find awesome things in them and you learn about their history. for example, who ever owned this piano before mike liked to get so drunk that he would spill a whole beer into the piano. also someone liked to get so sensual when they played this that they dripped hot wax all in it.


here are the keys all taken out so i could lube up all the posts.


so this is how the keyboard looks on the inside, like the back of a russian man.


and here it is after a good cleaning. much better. these pianos were designed to be worked on by the player. not that kind of player! i mean regular people like you and me that play music. the next step was to tune and then adjust the pickup distance and angle of the tines.


i'd be interested to see what a "licensed professional" would have done with this thing, but i wouldn"t be interested in spending $250 to find out.