kosis

Ozite Covering

Note: It is difficult to get good pictures of Ozite with a flash because the fibers reflect the light back and make the material look somewhat spongy and gray. It is neither. It is a tightly woven, coal-black material similar to what you see on many speaker cabinets.

I decided to use Ozite because of the inevitability of damage to Tolex on any electric piano that is genuinely gigged. Although the Tolex in a studio environment can be kept pristine, it is rarely intact on a keyboards that are gigged. In any event, even with a road cover, and even with extreme care, there are just too many variables, and all it takes is one nick, then two, then a larger one, and before you know it ...

I chose Ozite not really knowing what it was. I knew Brian Corey had re-covered his keyboard with the "speaker carpet" from Vibroworld

and was satisfied with it. I ordered some, was satisfied with the material, then saw from the invoice that it was actually Ozite. I found Ozite online http://ozite.com/, read up on it, and decided to go ahead. Zack at Vibroworld told me that he stocks this particular Ozite because it is the carpeting/covering used on a certain type of speaker with which he deals a lot.

Although Brian used normal neoprene contact cement with his, he warned that one had to move quickly. I tried one side panel and found that the contact cement bleeds through to the other side of the Ozite too quickly and could not be removed from that outer side.

I emailed an Ozite distributer and the Ozite factory itself and was directed to the 3M contact sprays and to Instabond (see Hardware Sources). I used both, since I ran out of Instabond very quickly and simply went to the hardware store and got a couple of cans of 3M 77.

One has to be very, very careful using these sprays, since any drift that settles on the outer side of the Ozite is virtually impossible to get off, though some smaller flecks can be removed once they have dried. But on balance, once I got side panels on and started to do the larger pieces, I taped off the panels with plastic sheets and masking tape until they were completely isolated and protected from even the slightest spray drift.

I used two coats of the spray: one on the Rhodes wood and one on the inner side of the Ozite. One waits about a minute for the cement to get tacky, then attaches the Ozite to the frame. But be careful: the contact spray is very unforgiving; once you have set the Ozite in a certain position and want to shift it, it is very difficult to remove or slide. I ended up getting the pieces in position and then spraying only a portion of the Ozite (e.g., along an edge of the cabinet which you can keep immobile), attaching that part so that the Ozite itself was in the right position and immobile, then applying the contact spray to the rest and folding it over onto the cabinet. You really do have to get the Ozite into an immobile position along an edge first; you cannot do the entire piece of Ozite all at once, since it is extremely difficult to get it all into the perfect position afterward.

Try a few dummy pieces on a small piece of wood first for practice.

That said, once the Ozite is in place, it is as tight as Tolex and much tougher.

Note: As with some other coverings, Ozite is too thick to wrap over the lip on the player's side between the keys and the cabinet without impeding the movement of keys. Since it is so difficult to fit such a piece precisely, I merely fit it like Tolex, i.e., went ahead and wrapped it over, then trimmed away the part extending down into the cabinet with a utility knife. Very easy fix.

I also had a black linen dust cover made for the entire keyboard at home (not because I'm obsessed with keeping it pristine, but because now the cats do not think it is a scratch post) (Olivia is visible just behind it to the left).

To protect the gear during transport I picked up the top and bottom protective covers:

Liens