The First Play

After spending some time trying to tune the whistles with a piano I went out and brought a tuner which I found much more accurate. This is the first play of the organ.

The Front Cover Shuffle

It is important to wait until this stage to place the front covers on. This is because they should be put in slightly different places if the bellow pressure is different. You must wind the handle and find the place that the pipe plays best. You should also remember to tune the whistle which I forgot to do!

You spin me right round,... (take up spool... right round)

The spool which takes the music. The take up spool. Came unstuck. Due to the difficult position of this spool it was impossible to put a screw in on the outside. So originally I just used Araldite but I've found it doesn't stick so well to brass. So at this stage as its all inside I had to drill a large hole into the spool then get a screw into the axis. Carnage! But it now works. I think it is important to take these risks to get the best results.

Connecting pipes to board

I decided to use a very dark wood dye to colour the board which the pipes go on. Its not completely black but very dark brown. This makes a really nice contrast.

All the holes had to be put in exactly the correct place. I placed the peacock visaed on top of the pipes and pipe board to get the pipes in the right place so that they followed the shape of the peacocks. I considered using metal inserts in the pipes to reduce kinks in the pipes when connecting them to the tracker bar.

In the end I decided to not use the metal inserts as I didn't find it hard to gently bend the pipes to the tracker bar. Its like a forest of pipes down there! It is now almost impossible to get to the pipes at the back so I hope its right.
This pipe kept knocking against the connection rod so I attached a screw and an elastic band to keep it out of the way.

Do the twist

These are the mitered pipes which fit into the organ casing. Its a bit of a shame really as they are so pretty.

The tone is very slightly different after they are mitered. I think they look great and would like to experiment making more shapes in the future.

All together now

These supports are to hold the pressure box at the top and the bellows at the bottom. The section which is cut out in the corner is there so that the pressure lid can open easily.

The pressure box should fit inside the side panels. The pipe board should then also fit into the side panels. I noticed that the pipe board was wider than the pressure box. I didn't want to sand down all the pipes to fit in so I chose to redesign the casing. Now instead of the pipe board fitting inside the side panels, the pipe board goes on the front of the side panels.



This baton supports the pipe board.

The pressure box is put in. As everything fits in tight I found that as I put things together things got harder and harder to fiddle with and fix. I learnt that it is important to test everything as you go.

You can see here that I tried to make a make shift handle just to test it. This came apart quite quickly. You can also see that there is very little space to play with.

Bellow pressure 4

I used talc powder inside the bellows to make them rub less against them selves. I was also recommended to paint shellac carefully down the creases of the bellows between the card stiffeners to minimize air gaps.

This is the wooded block which used to connect the bellows to the pressure box. You can see why I replaced it!

I used contact adhesive not PVA this was must better.