Jupiter 8 Powder coating success!!

I received the call from Topcote that I had been waiting for… Cora’s brand new powder coat was finished !!

I am glad I trusted in Clive… the color is perfect and the coat is smooooth! Cora recieved a full grey Zinc undercoat to stop rust, then a light sand to remove blemishes and then the powder coat. Only a few of the Roland spot welds remain very lightly visible, but a marked improvement on how it was before when she left the Roland factory. Here’s Clive in his workshop showing me the result:

unwrapped and on the workshop bench:

from another angle the panel back home:

And the rear:

It’s important to mention here that you don’t want to over-hassle workshops and call them every day for your job. Gentle nudges every 2-3 weeks is all you should be doing. You don’t want your valuable synth work squeezed in or rushed through and damaged. For example, the light thickness of Cora’s metal panels mean that they can only be “baked” in the oven at the lowest temperature that the powder coating process works at…for at least 4 hours between 180-200 degrees. They don’t often run the ovens that low. You have to be patient, you don’t want them throwing your job in with others that is not ideal temp just to keep you quiet. Any higher temperature and the entire panel can buckle and twist…essentially the metal melts! It’s a very delicate process. Clive also completely powder coated the underside of everything as well, to completely remove the possibility of air coming into contact with any surface, unlike Roland who only originally powder coated the top side of the panel and sprayed black paint on the underside in certain areas.. a cheaper option. Here’s the underside of the top panel beautifully powder coated:

The side mod panel was also done, including zinc coating! Roland never did this for the side panels originally, which is why they are always the first to rust and bubble on Jupiters. Roland just powder coated straight over the metal for these, and the results of Roland’s lazy effort shows through 30 years later on many of these mod panels on owners synths that have deteriorated considerably. They are always to first to rust (if you’re looking to get a Jupiter 8, a good tip is to look closely at this side mod panel metal for rust and bubbles first as an indication of the condition of further rust inside and elsewhere). Here’s the mod panel plus the right hand spacer… newly stripped, sanded, rust treated, zinc undercoated and powder coated!:

Its a beautiful thing.

The bottom panel was only ever spray painted black by Roland…never powder coated. It rusted badly in Cora the Corroder … for lots of reasons I think. Stray ions from all the electronics, mixes of different metals touching each other such as brass pcb stands always creates rust etc But in my situation the bar drinks and sticky smoke machine fluid in the air that washed through Cora during her hard-beaten touring years leaked around inside via the keys and sat on the inside metal floor of the synth, slowly eating away. Here is what she used to look like :

Now!:

Thanks Clive at Topcote for an awsome job and looking after my Cora!!!

Next stop… the Decal graphics workshop. They are closed until mid-Jan and then Cora has a 2 week wait (probably more after the Christmas build-up of jobs) so it’s looking more like another 4-6 weeks wait before I have a completed top panel to work with. Daym. Never mind as I mentioned we can’t rush these things, decals can very easily be printed crooked if rushed! and there’s plenty to do meanwhile on Cora…Like rebuilding the power supply and patch button pcbs. Plus my brand new remade Aluminium side cheeks are due back from the workshop soon! And with Cora’s bottom panel returned that doesn’t require decals we can start re-installing boards and rebuilding her…