I’m the current owner of 2 Roland JV-1000 workstations, one I’m going to restore to pristine condition and the other is my ‘organ donor’ (excuse the pun). I’ve found that an off the shelf drain cleaner is excellent at dissolving that nasty gooey red epoxy crud. What I’m having difficulty with is cleaning up/ replacing both of the felt strips that are on the key chassis. Apart from the color, are they different? And what can I use to clean up the old adhesive from the after touch strip?
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The strip on the top side of the chassis is the aftertouch strip, which has a felt strip overlaying the pressure strip. That aftertouch strip is here, but currently not in stock:
I’m not sure the felt can be removed from this without pulling the aftertouch strip apart. If you have been able to do this, rubbing alcohol should remove the sticky residue from the plastic strip. We don’t have a felt strip of the correct size to replace this - it is half the thickness of the other felt. (We do have some of the correct thickness, but it is twice as wide. I don’t know if there is room on the chassis or not for that extra width.)
The felt strip on the underside of the chassis is this one:
What is the drain cleaner you purchased to clean up the epoxy? I too have a JV1000 that has the oozy red epoxy.
I just corrected the same problem on a JV 1000 I just purchased. I used Draino Kitchen Granules. Purchased from the local Home Depot. Removed the keys and placed them in a 5 gallon bucket and soaked over night. The next day the weights fell right out and there was no sign of red epoxy left. There were about 10 keys I had to soak for an additional evening but then the weights fell out of them as well. After that set them out to dry and cleaned up with soap and water.
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For some reason, my reply email was blocked… Sorry about that. Kroger has a hair clog remover which contains Lye. Nasty stuff on skin, but cleans out the red epoxy just great. Rinse the keys well before handling. It’s called Instant Power Hair Clog remover. It’s In a black bottle. If I could post a pic, I would.
draino has other chemical in it you need straight lye… sodium hydro . amazon just dis a roland VK-7 which is now up for sale, and one bad ass board . theres no better digital clone wheel hammond out there. and only the korg analog c bx/cx non midii first gen rox any better. I know I own both and more I am still lookin for an oberheim 3 squared and a wurli… southern USA
6 years later…
I just picked up a JV-1000 and it appears to be suffering from the dread red glue syndrome.
A bunch of keys are not returning to their position properly after depressing them (they come back up but slowly so it definitely has glue seepage into the mechanism). Some keys are only responding if I strike them quite hard and a few other notes playback at maximum velocity.
I’m familiar with the red glue as I have a JV-80 but luckily it was always stored on its feet so the glue has only ever dripped downward. This machine has obviously been stored on its back (likely in a case) so the glue has all dripped back into the mechanism.
I’m not sure how much damage to expect so far since I haven’t opened it up yet. From what I’ve read here I’m expecting I’ll need to get a new after touch strip and possibly new felt.
It seems to be functioning well otherwise except the display is very dim. I can just barely make out the patch names and settings. The strange thing is when I turn it on the splash screen displays fine. It’s bright and easy to read. It’s only after it scrolls through the logo that it goes dim. Perhaps it’s just a ribbon cable? Maybe some of the glue has dripped back that far.
I’m going to do my best to restore this board though I’m sure there will be challenges.
Any additional info regarding what to expect or additional tips & suggestions will be gratefully appreciated.
This is what I used to get the Red Goo off the keys. I put the keys in a large glass pickle jar ( the largest I could find at the time) and let them soak for 48 hours. It did a great job and the chemicals did not affect the original keys at all. I replaced the weights and glued them in with a 2 part Gorilla Glue Epoxy and have not had any problems at all. As far as the aftertouch strip is concerned, any alcohol will soak into the felt strip and remove the adhesive backing and getting the red goo out of the felt strip…really forget that. Syntaur have the upper keyboard (key return) strip for about $15 or so, but the aftertouch strip does not work well if you sub the upper felt strip for the aftertouch felt.( I tried it and some keys sounded and some keys don’t) Its just too thick. perhaps try and source it from Amazon or a piano manufacturer, but unless you can get the original part, you might be out of luck. I don’t think there is any useful technical detail that will describe how thick the AT strip felt should be. As for the board being stored on its back…the goo has probably got onto the chassis, key springs, and the contact pads, etc, which you probably need to replace anyway if the keys are not sounding.