A Rare Breed Indeed: The Helpinstill Roadmaster

Another rare gem makes its way into The Chicago Electric Piano Company’s workshop! Here’s a look at a Helpinstill Roadmaster:

The Helpinstill Roadmaster was designed to be a gig-worthy acoustic piano that incorporated a true acoustic piano’s soundboard with an electormagnetic pickup and a custom designed foldable key bed. Helpinstill also designed the custom pickup that was incorporated into the piano and the Roadmaster pianos were built by Kimball to Helpinstill’s specifications using his unique pickup design.

In short, the Roadmaster is a Kimball piano soundboard installed into a road case with a foldable key bed and action assembly. The piano was available in 88 and 64 keys which collapsed into a road case with caster wheels that made it easier to move around.

This Roadmaster features 64 keys and had brass tacks installed on the hammer tips to give it an acoustically honky-tonk vibe and more attack through the electromagnet pickup.

Here’s a look at the foldable action assembly:

This piano came in with a lot of ‘miles’ on it! Here’s a glimpse at the crooked keys before we rebuilt the keybed:

In Chicago Electric Piano Company fashion we got to work first by rebuilding the key bed from the ground up, then restoring the action for the ideal expressive touch. Along the way a few stings needed to be replaced…

Although the piano was designed for transportation, three of us were breaking sweat lifting this into the van on a hot Chicago afternoon! –We look forward to hearing back from this rare beast again soon!

…This very piano has already been part of some very well known recording–chances are good that you have heard from this very piano before!

You can track this electric piano on your next record at Pieholden Studios, located in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village. Visit their web page for more information about their rare vintage gear collection.