Making the most of it....

Okay, so where has the time gone?
The heat of summer really slowed me down, so much so that I have done precious little on the organ, lately. But cooler weather is approaching, and activity will step up, soon!
First, I held a concert at my church- New Covenant- back on September 14th. The theme was Big Band music, and I was aided by Elizabeth and Wil Thomas, who provided vocals on roughly half the show.
They were awesome!!   There was no room left for more, and we collected $1,100 in donations for the organ! I am SO flattered.
Almost immediately, I put a bit of the money to use. From a contact in Oregon I received a shipment of vox-humana pipes, and some spare diapasons. I made a trip to Baton Rouge to pick them up, as they came air freight.
The vox is in excellent shape! He inadvertently left a few out, so he is going to be sending those to me. The total? $100 for the pipes, and about $200 for the shipping (they are HEAVY).
Now, compare that to having to have a new set made, which would be about $7,000.
And, these are ORIGINAL Robert-Morton pipes!
Now, I have another contact in California who will be selling me some old Morton violin pipes, and the remaining diapasons. That would mean that I will be "spittin' distance" from having all the missing/damaged pipework replaced. And the $1,100 should cover it, all.
In the meantime, I am slowly getting the console ready to be reassembled, so pictures will be coming, soon. There were a lot of loose joints to knock open and reglued, and of course, the old,dark finish had to be removed, but it will be in GOOD shape when it is all done.
Stay tuned....

Chipping away at it...

It has been several months, now, since I have received the organ.
I still look around my shop in awe- what a project! In one area sits the console, or the pieces of it, I should say. I had to dismantle it to reglue joints and do needed repairs. When the time comes, it will all go back together, easily.
Over in another area are some of the longest and largest metal pipes, silent now, but waiting for the chance to spring back to life.
Spread out are the pipe chests, upon which the various pipes sit. Relay boards, dice boxes, blower, the main regulator/ reservoir, and more pipes. Then there is the large xylophone and the "harp".
I need to face it- I need at LEAST twice the room that I have!
When I went to a friend's house to tune his piano the other day, he began to ask about the organ. He had read the article that came out in the local paper, but was confused- was there enough of it left to restore? Was it all just a pile of junk,  with little left to actually restore?
Oh, no- I assured him- ALL of the basics are there. It is just ALL in need of a serious overhaul and rebuilding. It CAN be done.
One of the points that has caused me some occasional restless nights has been the pipework. Boy, it really got beat up. Not the big metal pipes or the wooden tibia pipes, but the smaller, easy-to-remove pipes.
You don't have much of an organ without pipes! In a previous post I noted how much or each rank was missing or damaged beyond repair. It was- many times- disheartening.
A major pipe supply company had quoted me that to make new pipes for just the violin rank would be over $6,000!  And I need serious help with 3 metal ranks. I clearly envisioned that it would be nothing short of $22,000 to replace the damaged pipework.
I don't have THAT MUCH money to invest in this, for as much as I envision the City or another local entity taking the organ, I don't know- for sure- if that kind of money would ever be realized back.
So, I have persistently watched a couple of sites on the internet that deal with old pipework, of the kind I need. There are people out there that have collected pipework from various organs and have lots of it stored away. And you can get a  rank for a fraction of the cost of new.
And on my birthday- August 2- an ad popped up, with some of the pipework I needed!!!!  YES!!!
The seller and I have communicated a number of times and struck a deal. I will be getting genuine Robert Morton violins, vox-humanas and some diapason. At a WONDERFUL price! It will be coming from Spokane, Washington, and he is busily constructing crates and heavy-duty mailing tubes .  It won't be long!!! 
With luck, I will be able to replace ALL of the pipework for less than $1,000. That is significant!!!
I will post some pictures of the new pipework when it gets here, alongside pictures of the old and twisted!
Onward.

It's a long way to Tipperary....

I am sitting here on my sofa thinking about the organ, and what to do.
It is SUCH a BIG project. There is so much work to be done, and unfortunately, the materials ARE NOT CHEAP! At least, the GOOD materials aren't cheap.
Pouch leather, from thin to heavy. Packing leather, for all screwed-together joints. Valve leather, for the valve facings. Swell shade leather for the swell "motors". Leather, leather. leather.
Felt, of a special woven design, used as bumpers, backers to valve facings and muffler boxes.
Wiring: B & S #28 for console wiring, and it leads out to the pipe chests.
Phospor bronze wire for new contact springs.
And a LOT of pipes to replace the broken/missing ones.
I am going to have to do extra work to make a LOT of extra money. a concert will help, as I plan to accept donations.
I will have to restore and house the organ here, at this time. No organization or the city has expressed any desire to help. That's okay. I am going to make the organ modular, so it can be moved from venue to venue.
God grant me the strength and health to continue this to the end.

The first picture shows some of the wooden Tibia Clausa. Second picture shows  the main tremolo unit after being restored. The last picture is a look at the relays and armatures in the back.

One day at a time...

One day at a time. Yep. I keep telling myself it is all about the payoff, and half of the enjoyment is the time spent doing the job and doing it right! I must avoid the tendency to want it too soon, as that will lead to agony...
I have finally finished stripping all the original wiring from the relays and the junction strips. A repetitious job, to be sure, but it has to be done.
My biggest concern is getting new pipework.
I cannot afford it myself, without significant cashing in of investments, and I do not wish to deplete my reserves in case I live longer than I expect!
Let me outline it.
The Tibia Clausa. That is a fundamental rank of a theatre organ. The Baker Grand organ boasts a Tibia that they called the "Muted Horn". It is a wooden rank of pipes, with the exception of the highest 20 notes, which are open metal ones. Robert-Morton apparently made a FINE "Muted Horn", and is very desirable. In fact, several people that have been giving me some advice on all this have expressed a desire to purchase the rank! The Tibia encompasses 97 pipes. Of these pipes, ALL of the upper metal ones are gone, and will have to be made.
The Diapason is an open metal pipe rank. It was heavily damaged or removed. Out of the 73 pipes, close to 45 are needed, most of which are the upper range.
The violins didn't fare well, either. Robert-Morton made some BEAUTIFUL violins, extremely imitative of the orchestrial violin. Out of  85 pipes, about 50 are needed.
And lastly, the vox humana. It was ravaged, too. Out of 73 pipes, 40 are needed.
That is a LOT of damaged or missing pipework!
I just refuse to think that enough money cannot be raised to replace the needed pipes.
I am checking-every day- two sites on the web that are "clearinghouses" for theatre organ pipes and parts. Original pipework DOES surface evry once in a while. Prior to my looking for the parts, there was a set of violins (Morton), and a set of Morton vox humanas. The complete vox humana was going for $250!!  All in good condition. I was too late- they had been sold.
Now, compare the price of a used, original set of violins at $600, to a set of NEW violins for $6,000.
The thought is staggering!
I won't but a used set of Wurlitzer or Moeller. I want Robert-Morton parts for a Robert-Morton organ.
There IS a difference in sound.
As an example, go to this website, scroll down and play the sound files for the various organ families. He has examples of Morton and Wurlitzer.
http://www.atos.org/about/instruments
So, keep your fingers crossed that the needed pipework comes up for sale. I have a year or two...no big rush! (right....)

Yeah, but what do I plan on doing with it?!

I have had a lot of people give opinions and advice on what should become of the organ. Some ideas are quite good, others interesting while still others are just not do-able.
LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR to any reader of this.
The organ NEEDS to stay here in Natchez. It is classified as an Historic Instrument, since it is all in its original state ( no alterations to any of the instrument, such as adding more ranks, or a new console), and is still in the town where it was installed, originally.
The organ NEEDS to be housed in a good environment, what could be classified as a "livable" environment. Controlled temperatures and humidity.Clean.
The organ NEEDS to be played for the enjoyment of ALL, whether that be citizens of Natchez or visitors.
I have spoken with the Historic Natchez Foundation folk. They are just as happy as can be that something from the Baker Grand has survived. They express interest. But, it stops there. They would like it, but they are concerned over how much space it would require.
In talking with a local architect, he tells me that the organ could be fitted into the City Auditorium. A little remodeling done, and there you have it.
So, here are the suggestions I have gotten:
The NAPAC Museum
The City auditorium
The theatre down at the Visitors Center
The Martin Performing Arts Center
The Ritz theatre ( impossible- it is just a shell: no roof)
The Clark Theatre  ( someone already owns it, and it, too, is in bad shape)
Build a structure to house it and put on concerts
and a few others
Right now, my ONLY recourse is to install it inside my shop, and just quit woodworking while it is there. My shop doesn't have a/c climate control. It doesn't need to be in there, but my choices are few.
I DO plan on making the organ MOBILE. That is, all the cables would have connectors that would allow for disconnecting components and MOVING the organ to another location. It is primarily pipe chests,a xylophone, a harp, a set of chimes, a large reservoir/regulator, a smaller regulator, a couple of tremolo units, the console and the blower. Then you have the swell shades, and I am working on how to structure a transportable enclosure which the shutters would be mounted in.
BUT, IT NEEDS A GOOD HOME. A public home.
Any ideas or millionaire benefactors would certainly be welcome!

Why am I DOING THIS??!!

I woke up  early this morning, and just laid in bed. The dog had appeared at some time during the night, and as par for the course, she decides that I am intruding upon HER bed space. That means, she has the most territory, while I am confined to Rhode Island.
I look at all the parts and pipes and wiring, and I wonder just why am I doing this? This is insane! I have no experience in restoring a theatre organ! Run away while I still can!
Bah!
There is something in my make-up that just can't resist mechanical gadgets. Mechanical MUSICAL gadgets makes it even more appealing.
For a number of years I have worked on pianos. The tuning side of piano work was not my initial interest, it was the mechanism- the action! All the parts! And the piano case itself, what with the chunk of cast iron, all the strings, the sounding board. All of that interested me, especially the prospect of taking something that was in bad shape and returning it to its original condition. Or close to it.
It wasn't long before I gravitated to player pianos.
My grandmother-on my father's side- had an old "Meister" brand upright player piano, and when she died, the piano came to our house. It was a BIG thing, and heavy! ( Why is it that everything that interests me is big and heavy?)My father had decided that we would try to get the player working again, and he acquired some small diameter tubing to replace broken pieces.
Dad didn't live much longer. His heart was not good, and I can remember as a child seeing a bottle of nitro glycerin up on a shelf in the kitchen, and wondering why we had explosives in our house! My father's adoptive mother died in September of 1972, and my dad just cried and cried. She had been in a private nursing home over on Pine Street for a year or so, and had had a series of strokes. Dad was tremendously devastated by the loss, and he was also plagued by his inability to discover who his real parents were. He had been consumed for a while trying to find out his birth family, and his adoptive mother-whom he loved dearly- was not any help. Now with her being gone, the task seemed more daunting.
The stress of the loss, his inability to find his birth parents and work just overwhelmed him, and he wound up dying just 2 months later- December 6, 1972.
Enough of that.
Off and on, I would try to make the player work. I would attach the hose from the vacuum cleaner to the player system, and would reverse the flow so it would produce pressure, i.e., blow air. Nothing. In all the times of tinkering with the old thing I could never get the player system to do a thing. It just sat there, defiant.
When I was reaching the point of high school graduation, my mother offered to buy me a NEW piano, and so we traded the piano in at Heard Music Co., and got the piano I still have today- a Baldwin spinet. (It still serves me well, and has seen a lot of use!)
Years later, when faced with the prospect of acquiring an old player piano, I jumped at it, remembering my grandmother's old piano.
This time, I found  BOOK that was devoted to restoring player pianos, and with a little time and investment in supplies, I did it!
And it was at this time that I discovered my fatal flaw concerning my grandmother's piano. I had tried so hard to get hers to work by blowing air in through the inlets for the action.
I had no idea, until this point, that the system operated off of SUCTION, not PRESSURE. RATS.
To this day, I wish I had my grandmother's old player piano, 'cause now I could fix it!
Through the years I have done a number of old players, each with different player actions. Amphion, Gulbransen, H.C. Bay, Kimball, Baldwin, Standard, Aeolian, Starr, Steck, Jacob Doll,Wurlitzer,Straube, and a couple of others that I could not identify. They were always fun, challenging and rewarding.
The restoration techniques took me into the realm of reed organs. Those are neat, and in comparison to a player piano's action, very simple. I still do reed organs, and wish I had one of my own.
Then, not satisfied with what I had done, I built a replica of a Wurlitzer 105 Band Organ. A band organ is kind of like a hybrid between a player piano and an organ. Half of the instrument operates off of suction, the other half from pressure. It operates off of a music roll, and the roll activates little fingers to push down on the organ "keys" . It is this part that operates off of suction.
When the keys are pushed down, air pressure is admitted to a corresponding pipe, or pipes, and music is heard. There are 97 pipes inside the organ, broken down into cello, violin, piccolo, flageolet, trumpet and flute. Much like a pipe organ, you can control how many ranks of pipes you want to play. The instrument also has a snare drum and a bass drum, both played off the music roll.
All of this building and restoring gave me the confidence to face this new challenge.
Except for the wiring, there is nothing involved in the restoration that is a puzzler or really beyond what I have already experienced. Well, okay...the metal pipes...I have zero experience with them, but  hey! You gotta start somewhere.
I am facing this project with high hopes! I know what it is supposed to do. I know what it is going to sound like.
ONWARD!!!!!