Yet More Organ Madness

But not pipe organ madness.
We recently purchased whats called a Victorian Parlour Organ and it is fricken gorgeous!
It looks like a set piece from the Haunted Mansion or something and it looks amazing in our parlour...
Well, its not in the parlour its in the room we've been calling a library but I suppose now we should
call it our music room?

Okay enough words check out its gorgeousosity.

Organ in Position

Keyboard Cover

Awesome flame sides

Detail Close Ups

The Cute Little Organ Stool

Those are metal legs!

The Pedals

Pedals And Bellows Cover

When you push down both pedals you can see the bellows and the pedal straps.

The organ was supposedly mechanically restored about 20yrs ago. Those straps and bellows sure look newer than 100+ yrs old which we believe was how long ago it was manufactured (roughly).

Now, Lets Take It Apart!
Gotta see how it works right?
Luckily these things were meant to break down into several pieces.

Top Off

I also removed the front cover.

Which I discovered has a pretty good crack...

Naked

Stops Knobs

Stop Knob Mechanism

Lots of complicated levers and stuff! Love it!
The above pic shows that one of the stop knobs has become disconnected..?

The red thing is the Vox Humana Paddle.

When activated it spins on its long axis and gives the sound a warbling quality. Its supposed to sound like a human singing with vibrato.

There are two knee levers on the front of the piano.
The right one works a reed organs version of a swell shutter.

Closed

Open

I have no friggen idea what the left knee paddle does...
Its connected to a complicated mechanism that appears to do several things at once?

Yes I got it all back together!

So, I don't know when and if the organ was rebuilt.
The uh, action, sorta feels like it needs some lube but the felt and things looks newer than 100yrs.
All the stops appear to work and all the keys appear to work.
Though, I'm a little confused as to how exactly and what exactly some of them do...
The echo stop?
I can't exactly tell what the bass coupler is supposed to be doing either....

The Crazy Plan
I want to automate this reed organ to turn it into a haunted player organ!
My dream/goal is to have the thing play itself.
The pedals will pump, the stops will move in and out and the keys will move....
It looks like there is a lot of extra space from what I've seen so far.

A Built In Pipe Organ?

The Pipe Organ Madness Continues

Today I went into SF to look at the free built in pipe organ! Yay-Hurray!!!
In the Clist add the organ looks like this.

Doesn't that look amazing? Loove the wood work and the big metal pipes..
You can see it here and it appears to be still complete and in place...

Here's another shot from the ad of the console.

Here's what it looked like today when I went to go look at it...

The main pile of glop.

There appears to be some rather large wood pipes here. The ones on the bottom are probably 8" square and maybe 8' long.

 The console was upstairs.

 Its a Hinners!!!

Also up stairs where what appeared to be two, two rank wind chests with their tracker mech totally trashed...

This is the top side of the wind chest in the pic above.

The blower was still there.

I was told that before the demo the blower did work...though apparently nobody tried to play the organ
before it was dismantled...so no one could tell me if it was in working condition before removal...

A set of metal pipes.

I didn't count them but it looks like 61.

A set of small wood pipes.

The big gold pipes from the clist ad picture.

I honestly can't tell if these are real or not. If they are fakes they look real. The ends look like they're ready to go into a wind chest. They probably are not real but who knows.

So, it looks to me like any historical value was destroyed when it was removed...
The track mech and wind chests are pretty completely trashed.

I think maybe the only thing worth while would be to get the real pipes and the fancy wood work they were mounted on and possibly that big blower....

I had dreamed about carefully un-building the organ and installing it in my house but that just seems impossible now.

What to do what to do....

Yes I Have Completely Lost My Mind

Well, its finally happened...I've lost my mind. I've become one of those nutty old house owners who fill their vehicles with random, crazy old stuff....

I'm going to make a pipe organ!!!

We went to visit some family near Grass Valley and a neighbor was semi getting out of the 'pipe organ habit'.

Look at how packed lil' red was by the time we were done....

Good Lord, what did I get myself into.....
Lets take a look, shall we?

First off, A bass drum that plays itself!

Then, of course, a bell that rings itself.

A snare drum that plays itself.

Even the springs can be controlled to give a snare or tom sound I guess. Love the light bulb! Won't you have to take the entire thing apart to change it?

A cymbal that plays itself.

Its an entire (small) rhythm section!

A set of swell shutters with their mechanism.

Don't know what the heck I'm going to do with these but they are clear sugar pine (so I was told) and the wood is beautiful.

And this thing!

I have no idea what it is or what it does....

An organ keyboard.

What cool about this one is that each key can switch 4 different things.

Random electrical doo-dads to help in wiring my organ.

A piano midi converter.

This is very intriguing. It has 88 buttons meant to go under the piano keys. Then its got a midi box with midi in, out, and thru. With this ANYTHING could be turned into a midi musical instrument. Only problem is, I don't know anything about it..anyone have any ideas?

A solid state reverb board.

Cause pipe organs need reverb??

Not one, but two organ benches.

A train whistle.

I think that this is part of the percussion set. It looks like the bottom was glued into a bigger pipe.
Probably something in this box of random percussion parts.

Felt for sealing the pipes.

An oak wine barrel??

I'm totally going to age some cheap tequila in there.

An awesome framed poster!

Wurlitzers For Ever!!!

He INSISTED that I take a tape player and a box of cassette tapes of famous organs....

Wind Chests...lots and lots of wind chests.
Some electric some not.

This last one is the 'big mama'. Its a 4 rank wind chest that he was custom building.
One of the ranks is done and it has its own separate tremulant box.
The other three still need to be electrified...but hey, its made out of mahogany.

This thing is huge and heavy..and I honestly don't know what I'm going to do with it...

Finally The Pipes!
These are called flute pipes and sound like woodwinds.

The biggest bass pipes.

Some of the pipes are open.

Some are stopped.

A stopped pipe.

I just think they look nice, like art.

Look! It all fits in the 'Pipe Organ Room'.

Finally Some Old House Stuff!
Check out these cool tiles he threw in.

Don't know anything about them but I bet they'd look pretty great in a Victorian bathroom. Does anyone have a clue about these?

Up Next: Just what in the heck am I planning on doing with all this stuff anyways???
Here's a hint, think Halloween.....

Okay just so people don't think I'm totally crazy...I got all this stuff for well under $300...