Fifteen years ago, when Julia and
I were living in a studio apartment, she got me a keyboard. It was a
used Yamaha P85, and a significant expense for us at the time. I
loved it, and unlike the
penny
whistles,
accordion, and
stroh violin I was exploring, it had a volume control. Almost
immediately our cat knocked a potted plant onto it, and I needed to
take it
apart to carefully clean it.
Since then, however, I've had no issues, save one: clacky keys. Over
time the keys were getting louder, especially the "A" below middle
"C". Something had clearly worn out inside. It was an acoustic noise
on an electronic instrument—playing live the audience couldn't
hear the clacks over the amplified sound—but having odd percussion on
"A" wasn't ideal. Still, I applied my normal approach of
trying not to care, which saves me lots of time and money, and didn't
let it bother me.
Lily has been increasingly
fooling around with the piano, which I'm happy to see: this is also
how I learned to play. She asked me about the clacks, and when I
explained what I thought had gone wrong she asked if we could fix it.
I said I was happy to try, and we got to work:
There were about 40 screws, and Lily was very efficient. Getting the
ribbon cables out was tricky: I'd forgotten that the plastic at the end
is soldered to the board and not part of the cable, and both Claude
and Gemini steered me wrong as well. But once I pulled smoothly and
firmly at the base of each ribbon cable, it came apart cleanly. This
let me separate the two halves and see inside.
Once it was open it was a clear case of "one of these things is not
like the others":
Over time, the hammer for this "A" had completely worn through the
felt that is intended to give it a soft landing, and it was bottoming
out on the plastic below with a "clack". There were other places
where the felt was starting to go:
The keybed cushion felt clearly needed replacing. I found it on eBay (Yamaha part
WF212001), waited for it to arrive, and resumed work today after
trick-or-treating. Lily felt done helping, or at least would rather
trade candy, so I
did the rest myself.
Peeling off the old felt was annoying, mostly because I didn't do it
right. Most of the felt came off easily, but it left a thin layer
behind, attached to the adhesive. Scraping that off with a chisel,
bit by bit, was a pain.
When I was about halfway along the keyboard I tried from the other
end, tweaked my technique a little, and realized if I got a good
section moving and maintained a sharp angle I could pull it all off in
a single strip:
This was so easy, I wish I'd given up on the first method much sooner!
Once I had the old felt all the way off I put the new felt in place,
still with its adhesive backing on. After being sure it was
positioned well, I pulled the backing off bit by bit, sticking it down
firmly as I went:
I closed it back up, gave it some power, and played the keys. They
felt great and sounded right, except for a stretch of six keys that
now did nothing at all. I was pretty worried I'd broken something I
wouldn't be able to fix, and after all this work I wouldn't even have
a clacky keyboard. But after taking the ribbon cables back out,
rubbing them gently with my t-shirt, and carefully reseating them, the
whole keyboard works now!
Bottoming out feels significantly firmer (not better or worse,
just different), and very consistent across the whole range: the "A"
doesn't seem to have suffered from spending a few years going "clack".
If you look at this project from a perspective of spending time to
save money, it looks middling. I could probably have gotten a
less-abused P85 for ~$200, and this one cost me $60 in parts (would
have been $38
if I'd realized which of the two felt strips I needed) plus maybe 3hr
in time. My employer would be pretty happy to pay $200 (let alone
$140, with the $60 on parts) for another 3hr of my work! But I don't
think of it this way: this is relaxing hobby time, and it doesn't draw
from the same pool as work. I like having projects and doing things
with my hands, and I especially liked working on it with Lily. Just
like replacing
the anode on my water heater or cooking dinner,
this is rejuvenating time that happens to save money.
Overall, it was the kind of productive and satisfying project that I
feel good about having completed, but hope not to need to do again for
a while!
Fifteen years ago, when Julia and I were living in a studio apartment, she got me a keyboard. It was a used Yamaha P85, and a significant expense for us at the time. I loved it, and unlike the penny whistles, accordion, and stroh violin I was exploring, it had a volume control. Almost immediately our cat knocked a potted plant onto it, and I needed to take it apart to carefully clean it.
Since then, however, I've had no issues, save one: clacky keys. Over time the keys were getting louder, especially the "A" below middle "C". Something had clearly worn out inside. It was an acoustic noise on an electronic instrument—playing live the audience couldn't hear the clacks over the amplified sound—but having odd percussion on "A" wasn't ideal. Still, I applied my normal approach of trying not to care, which saves me lots of time and money, and didn't let it bother me.
Lily has been increasingly fooling around with the piano, which I'm happy to see: this is also how I learned to play. She asked me about the clacks, and when I explained what I thought had gone wrong she asked if we could fix it. I said I was happy to try, and we got to work:
There were about 40 screws, and Lily was very efficient. Getting the ribbon cables out was tricky: I'd forgotten that the plastic at the end is soldered to the board and not part of the cable, and both Claude and Gemini steered me wrong as well. But once I pulled smoothly and firmly at the base of each ribbon cable, it came apart cleanly. This let me separate the two halves and see inside.
Once it was open it was a clear case of "one of these things is not like the others":
Over time, the hammer for this "A" had completely worn through the felt that is intended to give it a soft landing, and it was bottoming out on the plastic below with a "clack". There were other places where the felt was starting to go:
At the high end, where I play so rarely that I got a 73-key keyboard for gigging, you can see the felt is as good as new:
The keybed cushion felt clearly needed replacing. I found it on eBay (Yamaha part WF212001), waited for it to arrive, and resumed work today after trick-or-treating. Lily felt done helping, or at least would rather trade candy, so I did the rest myself.
Peeling off the old felt was annoying, mostly because I didn't do it right. Most of the felt came off easily, but it left a thin layer behind, attached to the adhesive. Scraping that off with a chisel, bit by bit, was a pain.
When I was about halfway along the keyboard I tried from the other end, tweaked my technique a little, and realized if I got a good section moving and maintained a sharp angle I could pull it all off in a single strip:
This was so easy, I wish I'd given up on the first method much sooner!
Once I had the old felt all the way off I put the new felt in place, still with its adhesive backing on. After being sure it was positioned well, I pulled the backing off bit by bit, sticking it down firmly as I went:
I closed it back up, gave it some power, and played the keys. They felt great and sounded right, except for a stretch of six keys that now did nothing at all. I was pretty worried I'd broken something I wouldn't be able to fix, and after all this work I wouldn't even have a clacky keyboard. But after taking the ribbon cables back out, rubbing them gently with my t-shirt, and carefully reseating them, the whole keyboard works now!
Bottoming out feels significantly firmer (not better or worse, just different), and very consistent across the whole range: the "A" doesn't seem to have suffered from spending a few years going "clack".
If you look at this project from a perspective of spending time to save money, it looks middling. I could probably have gotten a less-abused P85 for ~$200, and this one cost me $60 in parts (would have been $38 if I'd realized which of the two felt strips I needed) plus maybe 3hr in time. My employer would be pretty happy to pay $200 (let alone $140, with the $60 on parts) for another 3hr of my work! But I don't think of it this way: this is relaxing hobby time, and it doesn't draw from the same pool as work. I like having projects and doing things with my hands, and I especially liked working on it with Lily. Just like replacing the anode on my water heater or cooking dinner, this is rejuvenating time that happens to save money.
Overall, it was the kind of productive and satisfying project that I feel good about having completed, but hope not to need to do again for a while!