So, there I was, working away in the studio, when I noticed some black dust on the keyboard of my Yamaha SY99 on my keyboard rack. I looked at the Synthstrom Audible Deluge above it, and moved it a little, and more black dust appeared. What?
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| The Black Dust! |
The dust is dark black, gritty, and very fine. I have no idea what it has been doing to my synthesizer keybeds or key contacts... I have to say that this isn't a complaint - after over 30 years, then I would expect some deterioration of some components, and everything else about the rack is still perfection!
After some investigation, it turns out that the rubber pads on the keyboard support brackets on my custom hand-built Ultimate Support Systems rack have perished over the last 30-odd years, and need replacing. (As an illustration of how things have changed over those intervening years: Ultimate now only seem to make those stage-friendly 'Z' and 'X' shaped stands... http://www.ultimatesupport.com/products/keyboard-stands.html )
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| Just removing the support brackets created dust! |
Fixing the problem requires pulling apart a five-tier custom keyboard rack ( the modern equivalent would be something like https://www.jaspers-alu.de/aid-677-KR170-4-150B.html ), removing the keyboard support brackets, removing what's left of the pads, then removing the 30-year-old adhesive (nasty and difficult), then putting on new better pads, putting the keyboards/synths, drum machines, sequencers, mixers and stuff back, then cabling it all up again - not quite a five minute job.
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| The rubber pads are now very fragile... |
As you can probably sense, it's all a bit fraught here at the moment, and I have no idea how much damage that black dust (gritty, abrasive, horrible stuff) has done to my keyboard contacts and keybeds. Vintage gear, eh? You think that all you have to contend with are LCD backlights failing, or electrolytic capacitors drying out - and then you get awful black dust everywhere. I'm just glad that I have spotted it, that I don't move stuff around on the rack very often, and that I don't have any of those amazingly expensive synths that you see on eBay and Reverb. I'm also guessing that there may be more than a few other synthesiser owners who haven't checked the rubber pads on their more-or-less permanently-installed keyboard racks for quite a while... Now could be a good time to check. It did seem that, as with 19 inch racks, heat may be a major contributor to problems - the worst deterioration did seem to be where the synth/sequencer/drum machine/etc., got warm...
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| The support bracket, the gripper bracket, the bolt and an Allen key... |
Some mechanical details are probably a good idea here - because the modern racks from people like Jaspers are different (Yep, in more than 30 years, designs have changed!). The basic tubing of the rack is black anodised aluminium: 38 mm in diameter. the gripper clamps/brackets use an Allen key to tighten them in place by gripping the tube, and a pozidrive bolt holds the support bracket onto the gripper clamp/bracket. As you can see, there's a design problem with the gripper clamp/bracket - it is in one piece, and so can only be removed by pulling almost the whole keyboard rack apart (in most cases!). That is a lot of dismantling! A two-piece gripper clamp/bracket would be a much better design...
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| The black dust removed from a support... |
After two days pulling my keyboard rack gradually apart, and then attempting to get the rubber pads off, I now have a much better idea of what is involved, and I also have a lot of black dust...
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| Chemical failure... |
The adhesive is the worst part - after more than 30 years it is almost part of the metal. I've tried scraping at it, Fairy liquid, various degreasers, orange oil (my secret weapon) and a scary adhesive remover that is covered in warnings and is apparently toxic, flammable, harmful and more. None of them shifted it. As usual, take care with chemicals: read the warnings, do it in a well ventilated place (or outside) if recommended, etc.
So I stopped the arms race of ever-more-scary chemicals, and went old school. Time.
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| After soaking overnight... |
Yep, there are very few things that a little time won't degrade - as shown by the rubber pads! So I soaked them overnight in a hot dilute fairy liquid solution. Fairy liquid, or your alternative favourite washing-up liquid, is designed to do degreasing and a few other useful dish-washing tasks, but the important ingredients here are time, and water. Water is a strange liquid. It has all sorts of properties that are unusual, and it turns out that the more you investigate it, the more interesting it becomes. Anyway, the recipe, again, is water, time, and heat to help reactions along a little. Let's pause here overnight, and maybe another overnight...
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| Scraped off and allowed to dry... |
So, when the adhesive remnants have changed colour (paler, less saturated colours, and a milky appearance), then things have probably got a lot easier. After two overnights, then the remnants of the adhesive can be scraped off very easily using a screwdriver or an old credit card (another secret weapon). This leaves just a few bits, which I soaked again overnight.
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| Finally! Clean to my satisfaction! |
I was now starting to see some progress, and after drying them, then one of the 'not quite as alarming warnings' spot cleaner got me very close to a clean metal surface. And a final wash and dry got me to a final look that I was happy with, and one that was suitable for the new clear rubber stick-on pads that should apparently last for 50 years.
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| Just before reassembly and sticking on the new pads... |
If anyone had told me that the 25mm square rubber pads on my keyboard stand were going to be such a major problem, I would never have believed them. Amazing. I'm dreading opening up the keyboards to see what I find inside.
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| Brackets with new rubber pads... |
And that was that. Several days of work to remove the gear, remove the brackets, figure out how to remove the remains of the rubber, then how to remove the adhesive, and finally clean the bracket ready for the new self-adhesive pads. Oh, and then put all the gear back, rewire it, etc. In the process, you can't help but reappraise the gear and start thinking about modernising, modding...
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