Can you soak keys?

[Jabberwalky]

I just acquired a really grimey Dx7. Every key is nasty, the insides are bad, and the sliders are jumpy. I was curious if I can just remove all the keys, throw them in a bucket of soapy water, and let them go? Is there a better solution? It will take weeks to detail clean each key, and I would rather remove the majority of the grime at once. Thanks in advance.

[Z]

I'm pretty sure I saw a video or photo either by Custom Synth or Kevin Lightner where synth keys are soaking in a bath tub.

I wash keys in a sink with dish soap and scrub with a terry cloth.

[synthRodriguez]

I've done the Roland "red glue of death" cleanup using an overnight soak in a sodium hydroxide (lye) solution.

It was an uber-nasty process, but they came out uber-squeaky clean.

[Yekuku]

I have been soaking keys in warm water for years and I recommend it , especially if they have decades of dirt on them.
Just pour some dish washing liquid and dont use very hot water as the glue holding the key weights may come loose.
Leave them for 1 hour and repeat 2-3 times for better results.
Unfortunately this will not remove all the dirt , so cleaning each key by hand is inevitable but it will be an easier process .

Warning : dont use sodium hydroxide for just cleaning purposes ,it is commonly used for resolving the glue that holds the key weights but it leaves a lot of residue, it stinks and removes the gloss of the keys.

[commodorejohn]

Should be plenty doable, they're just plastic and all the metal bits come off separately. Do note, though, that you should unscrew and remove the contact-switch assembly before popping the keys off the frame, or you're likely to get a bunch of unnerving bending of the contacts.

[Jabberwalky]

Ha! Well I went with the bucket of warm water and soap. It worked well. Unfortunately I didn't see your post Commordore! Now I'm going crazy trying to get all these contacts to line up and trigger properly again. What a pain in the a*s design. The velocity curves on this thing may never be correct. Damn.

[commodorejohn]

Yeah, I learned that the hard way too. Luckily the metal is pretty resilient for being so thin, so just carefully and gently bend the springs back into shape and you should be good.