The Rhodes refurb: a preface to the coming Pac-Man restoration
So last Monday, April 6, I purchased a working vintage upright Pac-Man from a gentleman in Long Island for the very reasonable price of $500.
This purchase represents the culmination of a childhood obsession, and the realization of a teenage dream. Pac-Man debuted in 1980. I was born in 1981. I grew up with Pac-Man. I have fond early memories of my dad propping me up in front of machines in arcades at the Woodbridge and Menlo Park malls. I had Pac-Man PVC figures, wind-ups, cups, T-shirts, vitamins, stickers. Even the Coleco tabletop game. I watched the short-lived Pac-Man cartoon. I wasn’t aware of the late-era disco record “Pac-Man Fever,” but I certainly had a bad case of it.
Early on in high school I searched high and low for a Pac-Man tee, scouring Manhattan’s vintage clothing shops. I found one, but it was a baby doll with glitter. Yeesh. I thought about learning how to make my own silk screens. Then, sometime around junior year, the T-shirt designers for trendy chains must have heard my pleading. Pac-Man tees started cropping up in various stores in the Staten Island Mall. And different designs too. I bought them all.
Sophomore year, on the annual marching band bus trip to Orlando, Florida, I drooled over a Ms. Pac-Man that sat, unloved, in a rest stop who-knows-where. My friend snatched the removable marquee graphic and gave it to me as a souvenir. It hung on my wall for years.
So I started to look into buying a full-size arcade machine. This was pre-eBay, so after doing some online research, I was convinced the best and cheapest way to buy one of these things was to attend a video-game auction (bring a pick-up truck and an extension cord, the sites advised). Unfortunately, it seemed that all of these auctions were located in the Midwest. The dream was put on hold…
But before I get any further into documenting my experience with the new large, yellow addition to my apartment, here’s a quick recap of my first experience with any type of restoration work; in this case, some minor fixes to my dad’s 1975 73-key Rhodes Mark I electric piano.
Last summer, while employed only part-time, I decided to work on the cosmetically impeccable Rhodes with the aim of brightening the sound and improving the action. After lots of reading at the Rhodes Super Site and elsewhere, I decided the best way to do this was to replace the tone bar hardware (wood screws, grommets, washers), and install Vintage Vibe’s Miracle Mod. (I also bought a new Rhodes name plate, a replacement brace knob, and rubber feet.)
Here’s a random sampling of photos, mid-refurb:
This was, for the most part, meticulous, repetitive (73 keys, 73 tone bars), painstaking work, especially the Miracle Mod installation. But after a few months of on-and-off work, it was done. I did a very rough voicing, and hey, it sounded better and the formerly sluggish action was now light and quick, albeit with a bit more key-noise.
When I finally moved the beast into my fourth-floor apartment (yes, there’s an elevator), I called up Frankie, the “Wurlitzer Doctor,” who advertised his services via Craigslist, to come by and give the thing a professional tuning and voicing. He said it was one of the best-looking Rhodes he’d seen in a while. I had to make some tiny adjustments the next day, but the piano sounds great — mellow and twinkly, with a just a hint of bark in the bass — even out of a tiny Peavey KB 1 (hey, it’s an apartment). I’m sure it’ll sound even better out of my Roland KC-550.
Add comment | 15 April 2009
