Day 2.
Now it was time to completely strip the keyboard down of all parts and commence with the cleaning of the case, the potentiometers and the switches. At this point it is always a good time to note the location of screws, earthing points and brackets with pen marks or photos. This saves time later at the rebuild stage.
Corrosion is always a pain to combat with neglected gear and half a dozen pushbuttons needed replacing. The faders were particularly bad and replacements were not an immediate option, so I carefully dismantled them, cleaned and lubricated the tracks and then re-tensioned the wiper arms. This would bring the audio back.
The case was in a bad way, it looked to be covered in paint marks, candle wax and an assortment of scratches and abrasions. (I won’t ask how the wax got there, but visions of satanic worshippers with dozens of candles and eerie noises supplied by the D50 did come to mind). This keyboard has been at the bottom of a junk pile for years and was long overdue so serious TLC.
A few hours in the kitchen sink with many detergents, scouring pads and elbow grease brought most of the grime off. The black anodised panels were scratched and a black marker pen covered up a multitude of marks.