[sdiy] Restoring a Roland SH09

[Daniel Araya]

A friend of mine had some emergency plumbing work done in his studio and
the plumbers drilled in the concrete roof without covering or moving his
synths out of the way! The synths with knobs survived but a poor little
SH09 that has sliders took most of the dust and sand so I had to take a
look at it.

I removed every slider (15), took them apart and cleaned the insides
with alcohol to dissolve the sandy grease. After that i cleaned every
part and applied lithium-grease (used to lubricate rollerbearings and
that type of stuff) to the upper part of the metal chassies of the
sliders. Then I carefully reassembled all sliders...they all worked and
feels like new!
The slideswitches were also full of sand but were a bit harder to take
apart due to lots of small parts so I used electonics-cleaner fluid with
lubrication to flush out all the sand.

While I had the thing apart I cleaned the frontpanel. I have a method
of making old panels look almost new; (standard disclaimer, this works
for me and I haven't destroyed a single panel yet but I take no
responsibility for anything you might do... :)
I use 5-56 (Swedish name for WD40) and a rag on screenprinted panels
and polish them thoroughly. That removes fingergrease and old stickers
etcetera. After that I use ordinary dishwashing-liquid and water to
completely remove the WD40.

The old dustcovers crumbled to pieces when I tried to remove them so I
made new covers for all sliders and switches using black velvet cut with
a razor and glued in place. 

The synth looks and feels very good, I bet it hasn't worked this good
in 20 years! 

/daniel