Fender Rhodes Stage 88 — Vol 04: Cabinet & Cosmetics

This is the cabinet-and-cosmetics volume of the refurbishment bench manual. While the action is on the bench (Vol 03, Tools, Bench Setup & Teardown), the empty case, the lid, the legs, the pedal, and all the hardware run on a parallel cosmetic track: re-covering the case in fresh tolex, repairing the structural splits that the heavy keybed eventually opens, refinishing the lid and the harp cover, recovering Suitcase grill cloth, de-rusting or replacing corners and latches, and reassembling the stand so it is rigid. None of this work touches the tone generator or the action, so it can proceed entirely in parallel — but several steps (re-laying tolex, re-seating the sustain rod) are the reverse of teardown moves recorded in Vol 03 and reference its photographs.

Note: The legs, crossbars, center knob, sustain pedal, and rod come off the piano first in the teardown (Vol 03 §“Step 1 — Stand, crossbars & sustain pedal”); their cosmetic restoration and the correct re-assembly — including the detail that the sustain rod seats in the rear guide cup, not the center hole — live here. The bench toolkit and the cabinet consumables (tolex kit, contact cement, staples, sandpaper, wood glue, filler, Evapo-Rust) were stocked in Vol 03 §“The refurb toolkit” and §“Consumables & replacement stock”; they are named per procedure below but not re-tabulated.

Re-tolexing

Tolex is the textured vinyl skin glued over the case’s plywood/particle-board shell. A Stage 88 that has seen stage and transport use arrives scuffed, peeling at the seams, and torn at the corners. Re-covering is the single most visible restoration step. The factory method — and the trade consensus that follows it — is: take the old covering off in one piece as a cutting pattern, prep the bare case, choose an adhesive, lay the new tolex panel by panel, fold and trim the corners (the hard part), staple the edges as Fender did, and let the new tolex cure and shrink for several days before judging the seams (fenderrhodes.com, Re-Tolexing Your Rhodes; tropicalfishvintage.com, In Restoration: Rhodes Mk I; vintagevibe.com, Fender Rhodes Tolex Kits).

A bare or freshly re-covered Fender Rhodes Stage case shell, showing the tolex-covered five-sided cabinet, the seams along the top edges, and a corner — the surface this section re-covers. — (credit to be filled — Task 13)

Tip: Buy several inches of extra tolex on every side beyond the measured need. The factory guide is explicit: get material with “a few inches of play on all sides, to compensate for mistakes,” and one technician went through 3 yards before a single corner came out right (fenderrhodes.com; tropicalfishvintage.com). Corners and edges eat material; running short mid-panel forces a visible seam in the wrong place.

Step 1 — Remove the old tolex as a cutting pattern

Tools/consumables: heat gun (variable-temp); utility knife with fresh blades; a wide putty knife or plastic scraper.

Work a corner or a peeling seam loose by hand and pull the old tolex off in the largest pieces possible, deliberately not ripping it — each panel is the pattern for its replacement (fenderrhodes.com; tropicalfishvintage.com).
Where the original glue still grips, play a heat gun across the back of the tolex to soften the adhesive before lifting, so the vinyl releases instead of tearing or pulling up wood fibers. (The heat gun is the tolex-removal/relay tool stocked in Vol 03 §“The refurb toolkit”; the factory guide notes the covering will often “just pull off,” but aged solvent glue frequently needs the heat to let go cleanly.)
Keep each removed panel flat and labeled by face (top, front, back, left, right, keybed cheeks). These become the templates against which new panels are cut in Step 4.

Warn: Do not rip the old covering off in shreds. The removed panels are the only full-size pattern for the replacements; a case stripped to confetti forces re-measuring every face from scratch, the most common way a re-tolex job ends up with mis-sized panels and crooked seams. Pull slow, large, and labeled.

Step 2 — Prep the bare case

Tools/consumables: sandpaper (assorted grits); tack cloth; wood filler; putty knife.

Scrape and sand off all residual glue and tolex backing. Significant residue and old cement remain after removal, and “sanding may be necessary” to get back to a clean, flat surface (fenderrhodes.com).
Fill chips and gouges in the bare wood with wood filler, especially along edges, so “the edges would look soft and consistent” — tolex takes the exact shape of whatever it covers, so any splinter or void telegraphs straight through the new vinyl (tropicalfishvintage.com).
Lightly sand the whole surface smooth, then tack off every wood particle so “the glue and tolex have a nice clean surface to bond with” (fenderrhodes.com).

Warn: Do not lay new tolex over leftover glue ridges, raised filler, or splinters. Because the vinyl conforms to the substrate exactly, every bump underneath becomes a permanent lump in the finished surface. Prep flat, fill the chips, and tack the dust before any adhesive goes down (fenderrhodes.com; tropicalfishvintage.com).

Step 3 — Choose the adhesive (the contact-cement debate)

Consumables: contact cement (neoprene / solvent-based / water-based) or Vintage Vibe’s dedicated tolex glue; foam brush or notched spreader.

The bonding adhesive is the most-argued single choice in the job, and the sources do not agree. The conflict is stated here, not resolved:

Neoprene contact cement (the factory-guide pick). The fenderrhodes.com guide uses “Elmer’s Neoprene-based Contact Cement, an even layer on both the wood and tolex,” smoothing out air bubbles while the cement is still wet (fenderrhodes.com).
Solvent / petroleum-based contact cement — it stretches the tolex. Petroleum solvent swells the vinyl: an 18 in-wide panel can grow on the order of 3/16 in (est., from reported widths) once wet with solvent glue, and that extra size shrinks back as the cement cures, opening gaps at seams that looked perfect on lay-up. Solvent cements also can’t be used safely indoors (fumes) (18watt.com, Glue for tolex; tdpri.com, Tolex and DAP Contact Cement Lessons Learned).
Water-based contact cement — gentler, slower, humidity-sensitive. Water-based contact cement (e.g. DAP Weldwood in the green can) causes “little to no stretching of the tolex when applied in cool conditions,” doesn’t soften the vinyl or dissolve foam brushes — but it takes longer to tack and works poorly in high humidity (18watt.com, Water based tolex adhesive…; tdpri.com).
Vintage Vibe’s dedicated tolex glue. Sold separately alongside the pre-cut kits as the matched adhesive for that vinyl (vintagevibe.com, Fender Rhodes Tolex Kits).

Note: The community does not converge on one adhesive. The factory guide names a neoprene contact cement; amp-restoration practice splits between solvent-based (faster tack, but it swells then shrinks the vinyl) and water-based (no swelling in cool/dry conditions, but slow and humidity-sensitive); the kit vendor sells its own glue. This volume reports the trade-offs and leaves the pick to the technician’s conditions (fenderrhodes.com; 18watt.com; tdpri.com; vintagevibe.com).

Step 4 — Pre-cut kit vs. tolex off the roll

Consumables: Vintage Vibe pre-cut tolex kit or bulk tolex roll + the Step 1 pattern panels.

Two ways to get the panels:

Pre-cut kit. Vintage Vibe sells model-specific pre-cut kits for 73- and 88-key, Stage and Suitcase, in “Early,” “Late,” and “No Hardware” variants, covering the piano base and the lid. “We have custom cut all the pieces for you. No major cutting, no bulk buying of tolex, no measuring — just small trimming and gluing.” The kit ships with a PDF layout-and-instructions sheet (e.g. “73 Stage Tolex Layout + Instructions”) and an instructional video (“Tips on tolexing sides and corners”). Black is stocked; custom colors run a 2–3 week lead time (vintagevibe.com, Fender Rhodes Tolex Kits / Custom Color Tolex Kits).
Off the roll. Cut each new panel from bulk tolex using the old panels from Step 1 as templates, “into pieces that resemble the original pieces as closely as possible” (tropicalfishvintage.com). This is cheaper per piece but is where the extra-material margin (the §opening Tip) is spent.

A Vintage Vibe pre-cut Fender Rhodes tolex kit laid out — the individually cut base and lid panels plus the layout/instruction sheet, the "no measuring, just trim and glue" alternative to cutting o… — A Vintage Vibe pre-cut Fender Rhodes tolex kit laid out — the individually cut base and lid panels plus the layout/instruction sheet, the "no measuring, just trim and glue" alternative to cutting off the roll. — (credit to be filled — Task 13)

Step 5 — Lay the panels (flats first, then the edges)

Consumables: chosen adhesive; foam brush/spreader; a rubber roller or felt block; clean rag.

Spread an even layer of adhesive on both the wood and the back of the tolex panel (contact-cement practice: both faces, let flash per the product before mating) (fenderrhodes.com).
Lay each flat face first, registering one edge and rolling the panel down to the far edge to push air ahead of it.
Smooth out every air bubble while the cement is still wet — once it grabs, trapped air is permanent (fenderrhodes.com).
Wrap the panel’s overhang onto the adjacent faces and the top edges, leaving the corners loose for Step 6.

Step 6 — Fold and trim the corners (the hard part)

Tools/consumables: sharp utility knife; the laid panel from Step 5.

Corners are where the re-tolex job is won or lost. The technique is to bring the vinyl up a side, fold it over onto the top, and make relief cuts where the angled flaps meet so the material converges instead of bunching — and critically, to do it without heating and stretching the vinyl (see the Warn). The fold/trim sequence is drawn below.

Bring the side-panel overhang up the corner and press it onto the top face.
Where the two folded flaps overlap at the corner, cut along the line where the angles intersect so the flaps meet edge-to-edge (“converge”) rather than doubling up (modwiggler.com, Wrapping case with tolex).
Fold the trimmed flaps down, press them into the adhesive, and trim the excess flush to the edge for the staple in Step 7.

Tolex corner-fold sequence

1 · Side up, top loose 1

tolex on side overhang flap fold up onto top

2 · Relief-cut at the corner 2

cut where the flaps intersect flaps converge, not bunched

3 · Fold down, trim, staple 3

edge staples (Fender-style) trimmed flush to the edge

Do NOT heat-and-stretch the vinyl to make the corner lie flat — it contracts as it cures and the seam reopens.

Warn: Do not heat the vinyl and stretch it to make a corner lie flat. Stretched tolex contracts over time, and “seams made perfectly will open up” as it relaxes — the most common avoidable re-tolex failure. Lay the corner with relief cuts and fold pressure, not heat-stretch; let the seam be tight without tension (modwiggler.com, Wrapping case with tolex).

Step 7 — Staple the edges (Fender-style)

Tools: light-duty staple gun.

With each panel laid and its corners folded, reinforce the panel edges with staples, exactly as the factory did: “The edges are reinforced with staples, as Fender did originally” (tropicalfishvintage.com).
Place staples along the case seams and back edges where the tolex wraps and terminates — locations that later carry a metal or plastic corner cover (see §“Hardware”) which hides the staples and protects the edge.

Step 8 — Cure: let the tolex shrink before judging it

Consumables: time (several days).

Set the freshly covered case aside. The tolex “shrinks to form over a period of a few days” as the adhesive cures and the vinyl relaxes (fenderrhodes.com).
Do not re-fit hardware, re-install the keybed, or re-cut a seam on day one. Judge the seams and corners only after the multi-day cure, since a seam that looks slightly proud while wet often pulls tight as it shrinks — and a seam laid under stretch will instead open (Step 6 Warn).

Warn: A re-tolex is not finished the day it is glued. Over-stretched vinyl and the normal multi-day shrink both move the seams: stretched panels open gaps, and even correctly laid panels need the cure before final trimming or hardware. Rushing hardware back on over wet, still-shrinking tolex traps the seams in the wrong position (fenderrhodes.com; modwiggler.com).

Case structural repair

The Rhodes cabinet is “rudimentary” plywood/particle-board carpentry, and the keybed is heavy; rough handling and transport eventually open the joints. The single most common structural failure is the rear panel splitting away from the sides — “the piece of wood that comprises the back of the case was splitting away from the sides of the case” (tropicalfishvintage.com, In Restoration: Rhodes Mk I). Structural repair precedes tolex (Step 2 prep assumes a sound shell).

Tools/consumables: wood glue; bar/pipe clamps sized to the case; corner brackets / reinforcement blocks; wood filler; sandpaper (all in Vol 03 toolkit).

Re-glue and clamp the split. Work wood glue fully into the rear-panel-to-side joint and clamp it closed until cured.
Reinforce the corner joints — do not stop at the glue. The restoration record is explicit: “repaired the split and reinforced the corner joints so it won’t happen again” (tropicalfishvintage.com). Add corner blocks, brackets, or mechanical fasteners so the rejoined corner is stronger than the original glue bond that already failed once.
Fill chips before tolex. Repair chipped edges and bare-wood voids with wood filler so the new tolex lies over a continuous, soft, consistent edge (carried into Re-tolexing Step 2) (tropicalfishvintage.com).

Warn: Do not simply glue the rear-panel split closed and re-cover. The joint failed under the keybed’s weight once and will fail again under the same load unless the corner is mechanically reinforced (corner blocks/brackets). Re-tolexing over an un-reinforced split buries the weak joint under fresh vinyl that tears the moment the joint reopens (tropicalfishvintage.com).

Note: Many tolex-covered cases also carry metal or plastic corner covers at the load-bearing corners — both a cosmetic finish over the stapled tolex edge and a structural wear part (§“Hardware”). A re-glued, reinforced corner under a sound corner cover is the durable result.

Lids, harp cover & velvet

Two separate covers are easy to conflate; they are different parts with different restoration paths.

The wooden tolex lid. The Stage ships with an “enormous, tolex-wrapped wooden lid that encloses the entire keyboard and latches at the sides,” carrying “a narrow compartment running along the length that snaps shut” — the leg/pedal storage compartment (tropicalfishvintage.com, What Should Come With a Fender Rhodes Stage Piano). The lid is tolexed exactly like the case (the Vintage Vibe pre-cut kits include lid panels — Re-tolexing Step 4) and carries its own latches and the compartment latches (vintagevibe.com, Lid Compartment Latches). The lid can also be repainted as part of a refurbish (tropicalfishvintage.com; sagebaggott.com).
The compartment velvet. The interior leg/pedal compartment and the lid lining are felt/velvet that perishes; it is replaced during refinishing. (The original also shipped a slotted vinyl bag for the legs and crossbars that rolled into the compartment — tropicalfishvintage.com.)
The ABS harp cover. Distinct from the lid: the molded A.B.S. plastic harp cover sits over the harp inside the case (its correct removal — rear corners first — is Vol 03 §“Step 2 — Harp cover”). It is not tolexed; to refinish it, it is painted (owners have done sparkle and custom colors) (tropicalfishvintage.com; sagebaggott.com).

Tools/consumables: tolex + adhesive + staples (lid, per Re-tolexing); paint + primer + sandpaper (harp cover and/or painted lid); replacement velvet/felt and adhesive; replacement latches.

Re-tolex the lid by the same eight-step procedure as the case (Re-tolexing), matching the case color/pattern.
Replace the compartment velvet/felt and any perished lid lining.
Refinish the ABS harp cover by painting (scuff-sand, prime for plastic, paint) — never tolex it.
Replace worn lid and compartment latches (vintagevibe.com).

Note: The lid is tolexed; the harp cover is painted. Confusing the two — attempting to tolex the molded ABS harp cover, or to paint the wooden lid that should be re-covered to match the case — produces a cosmetically wrong result. Match the lid’s tolex to the case; refinish the harp cover in paint.

Grill cloth (Suitcase)

Grill cloth is a Suitcase-only concern: it covers the speaker baffles of the Suitcase amplifier cabinet. A Stage 88 has no speaker cabinet and no grill cloth (Vol 03 §“Consumables” flagged grill cloth as “Suitcase only”). It is included here because a Stage refurbish often runs alongside, or converts from, a Suitcase.

Consumables: grill cloth (~3 yd total, see below); staples/adhesive per the baffle.

Coverage. A Suitcase amplifier baffle takes approximately 1.5 yards of grill cloth per baffle — about 3 yards total for both sides if cut without error (vintagevibe.com, Fender Rhodes Black Grill Cloth).
Match to the tolex. When re-covering a Suitcase, the grill cloth is chosen to coordinate with the tolex — vendors offer matched tolex-and-grill-cloth sets and a range of patterns (black; aged blue/white/silver; others) (vintagevibe.com, Fender Rhodes Tolex + Grill Cloth; fenderrhodesla.com, which coordinates tolex color with matching grill-cloth pattern).

Tip: Order grill cloth with the same extra-yardage margin as tolex. The ~1.5 yd/baffle figure is “without error”; a mis-cut or a re-stretch eats the margin, and dye-lot/pattern matching a second order to the first is rarely perfect (vintagevibe.com).

Hardware: corners, latches, badges

The case carries metal/plastic corner covers, latches (lid and compartment), handles, hinges, harp brackets, and the logo/badge. Decades of transport rust and break them. The choice per piece is de-rust or replace.

Tools/consumables: Evapo-Rust chelating bath (reusable, non-acid); replacement hardware / repro logos as needed; screwdrivers per fastener.

De-rust salvageable hardware by soaking the original parts in Evapo-Rust to strip rust without attacking the base metal — the Rhodes Mk I restoration soaked “original hardware … in Evapo-Rust in order to remove rust” so the cleaned originals matched the few new corner pieces, avoiding a full replacement (tropicalfishvintage.com).
Replace what is broken or missing — corners, latches, hinges, handles, harp brackets are all available as reproduction parts (vintagevibe.com, Fender Rhodes Hardware; electrickeys.co.uk).
Fit a repro logo/badge where the original is lost or damaged; reproduction logos and nameplates are stocked by the restoration trade (vintagevibe.com).

Tip: De-rust before deciding to replace. An Evapo-Rust soak frequently recovers original corners and latches well enough to keep, which both saves cost and preserves the original hardware’s exact fit and finish next to any new pieces (tropicalfishvintage.com). Mixing heavily-pitted originals with new parts looks worse than a uniformly de-rusted set.

Legs, crossbars & the center knob

The Stage stand is four legs, two crossbars, and a center brace knob — and it is only rigid when all three tie together correctly. The arrangement (and the distinction from the sustain-rod mount) is drawn below.

Tools/consumables: soft-jaw pliers / nut drivers (leg hardware, Vol 03 toolkit); Evapo-Rust for de-rusting the chromed/brass legs and bars; replacement legs / crossbars / center knob as needed (vintagevibe.com).

Four legs into bolt-on leg plates. The Stage has four legs — two front, two back — each screwing into the circular leg plates (flanges) bolted at the bottom corners of the case. The front legs end in a narrow smooth rod; the back legs end in a textured rod the same thickness as the leg, and that textured section unscrews slightly to accept the support crossbar (tropicalfishvintage.com, What Should Come With…).
Two crossbars — one per back leg. There are two crossbars (one for each back leg). Each crossbar hooks into the bottom of a back leg on one side (the leg is then tightened down around it), and its other end attaches to the center knob (tropicalfishvintage.com).
The center knob ties the crossbars for rigidity. The center knob screws into a plate at the center of the case, and both crossbars attach to it — this is what locks the two back legs to the case center and turns four independent legs into a stable platform. “The instrument is heavy, so it benefits from the support of the crossbar,” and chrome legs + crossbars “provide a wonderfully stable platform” (tropicalfishvintage.com; vintagevibe.com, Fender Rhodes Stage Cross Bars / Legs and Cross Bar Set).

Leg / crossbar / center-knob assembly (case underside)

Rigidity comes from the back legs + crossbars + center knob acting as one braced triangle to the case center.

Note: The legs and crossbars are often chromed or brass-finished; pitted sets clean up in the same Evapo-Rust bath as the case hardware (§“Hardware”), and full reproduction legs, crossbar sets, and the center knob are stocked if a piece is bent or missing (vintagevibe.com, Fender Rhodes Stage Cross Bars; Legs and Cross Bar Set; Reverb, Cross Bar Brace Leg Knob repro).

Warn: Reassemble the stand in the right order or it will not be rigid: back legs in first, each crossbar hooked into its back leg and the leg tightened down around the textured section, then both crossbars drawn to the center knob, and the knob run into the center plate last. Skipping the crossbars or the center knob leaves the heavy piano on four unbraced legs — the configuration that racks and eventually splits the case (§“Case structural repair”) (tropicalfishvintage.com).

Sustain pedal & rod

The sustain assembly is the pedal, two long rods, and a wingnut — and its one notorious reassembly trap is where the rod seats (tropicalfishvintage.com, What Should Come With…).

Tools/consumables: the pedal + two rods + wingnut; the sustain guide cup (original or reinforced replacement); soft-jaw pliers.

Assemble the pedal, two rods, and wingnut. The pedal also has four adjustable feet that unscrew to level it to the floor (tropicalfishvintage.com).
Seat the sustain rod in the REAR GUIDE CUP — not the center hole. This is the common error: “The sustain rod gets installed in the back of the piano in the sustain guide cup NOT the center hole. The center hole is for the brace knob to hold the cross bars in place” (vintagevibe.com / ep-forum.com, sustain pedal installation). The guide cup keeps the rod from slipping when the pedal is pressed.
Replace a broken or missing guide cup. The original guide cups were very thin and “usually broke or went missing”; the reinforced replacement is “twice as strong as the original” and drops straight in (vintagevibe.com, Fender Rhodes Sustain Guide Cup; Vol 03 §“Consumables”).

Warn: The sustain rod does NOT go in the center hole. The center hole/plate is the brace-knob mount that ties the crossbars (§“Legs, crossbars & the center knob”); forcing the sustain rod there leaves the pedal unsupported and the crossbars unmounted. The rod seats in the separate rear guide cup — the single most-confused step of Stage reassembly (vintagevibe.com; ep-forum.com).

Note: This mirrors the teardown note in Vol 03 §“Step 1 — Stand, crossbars & sustain pedal,” recorded there precisely so the guide-cup-not-center-hole detail is in hand at reassembly. If the original thin cup broke during teardown, fit the reinforced replacement now.

Sources

fenderrhodes.com, Re-Tolexing Your Rhodes (service/tolex.html) — remove the old tolex without ripping, keeping it as a pattern; buy “a few inches of play on all sides” of extra material; sand and tack off wood particles for a clean bond; “Elmer’s Neoprene-based Contact Cement, an even layer on both the wood and tolex”; smooth air bubbles while wet; the tolex “shrinks to form over a period of a few days”; corners are the hard part (a 3-yard learning curve); ~3–4 hours for an experienced technician.
tropicalfishvintage.com, In Restoration: Rhodes Mk I and What Should Come With a Fender Rhodes Stage Piano: A List — the rear panel splitting away from the sides and the fix (“repaired the split and reinforced the corner joints so it won’t happen again”); wood filler for chipped edges; tolex “takes the shape of whatever object it’s covering,” so light-sand and fill first; cut new panels to “resemble the original pieces as closely as possible”; edges reinforced with staples “as Fender did originally”; Evapo-Rust soak of original hardware to de-rust rather than replace; the wooden tolex lid that latches and carries a snap-shut leg/pedal compartment (with the original slotted vinyl bag); four legs (smooth front, textured back), two crossbars (one per back leg, hooking the back leg to the center knob), the heavy piano benefiting from the crossbar support; the sustain pedal + two rods + wingnut with four levelling feet; harp-cover repaint examples.
vintagevibe.com — pre-cut tolex kits for 73/88, Stage/Suitcase, base + lid, in Early/Late/No-Hardware variants (“custom cut all the pieces … just small trimming and gluing”), with a PDF layout/instructions sheet and an instructional video (“Tips on tolexing sides and corners”); black stocked, custom colors 2–3 week lead time; a dedicated tolex glue sold separately; grill cloth ~1.5 yd per baffle (~3 yd total) for the Suitcase, matched to tolex; lid + compartment latches, corners, hinges, handles, harp brackets, and repro logos/badges; Stage cross bars / legs / leg-and-crossbar sets; and the sustain guide cup — “twice as strong as the original,” which “usually broke or went missing.”
vintagevibe.com / ep-forum.com, sustain pedal installation — the sustain rod seats in the rear sustain guide cup, NOT the center hole; the center hole is for the brace knob that holds the crossbars in place.
fenderrhodesla.com, Fender Rhodes Retolexing and Grill Cloth Replacement — the re-tolex service scope (strip old tolex, wood repairs, re-tolex, new hardware) and coordinating tolex color with a matching grill-cloth pattern; original black or a variety of colors.
modwiggler.com, Wrapping case with tolex — corner technique: apply on the side and fold over onto the top, cutting where the angles intersect so the vinyl converges; the warning that one must not heat-and-stretch the vinyl because “the vinyl will contract over time and seams made perfectly will open up.”
18watt.com (Glue for tolex; Water based tolex adhesive…) and tdpri.com (Tolex and DAP Contact Cement Lessons Learned; Tolex Glue/Adhesive) — the contact-cement debate: solvent/petroleum-based cements swell the vinyl (a wide panel grows roughly 3/16 in, marked (est.)) and it shrinks back as the glue cures, opening seam gaps, plus indoor-fume limits; water-based cement (e.g. DAP Weldwood) causes little/no stretch in cool conditions and doesn’t soften the vinyl, but tacks slowly and fails in high humidity.
sagebaggott.com, Fender Rhodes refurbishing — corroborating lid-repaint and harp-cover repaint as refurbish steps.
Cross-references: the toolkit and cabinet consumables (heat gun, utility knife, staple gun, contact cement/tolex glue, sandpaper/tack cloth, wood glue/filler, Evapo-Rust, leg-hardware drivers) are stocked in Vol 03 §“The refurb toolkit” and §“Consumables & replacement stock”; the legs, crossbars, center knob, pedal, and rod come off the piano in Vol 03 §“Step 1 — Stand, crossbars & sustain pedal” (with the guide-cup-not-center-hole detail flagged there for reassembly), and the ABS harp cover is removed rear-corners-first in Vol 03 §“Step 2 — Harp cover.”

No dimensions, quantities, or adhesives have been invented. Material figures are quoted from their sources (extra tolex “a few inches” per side; grill cloth ~1.5 yd/baffle, ~3 yd total; custom-color lead time 2–3 weeks) and the one interpolated figure — the solvent-swell width on a wide panel — is marked (est.). The adhesive question is reported as a live debate (factory-guide neoprene vs. solvent vs. water-based vs. the kit vendor’s own glue), not resolved. The guide-cup-vs-center-hole seating and the rear-panel-split-plus-corner-reinforce repair are carried verbatim from the cited restorations.