Construction Photos
Windchests and pipes are usually the first parts of an organ to be made. Here Kent cuts bars for the slider windchests.
Lyndon and Jim are gluing the individual bars in a small slider windchest.
Jim uses a router and a special jig to plane a windchest grid.
Meridith attaching bearers to a small slider windchest. These are shims that hold the toeboards above the windchest with enough space in between for the slider to run.
The sliders are being fitted to this winchest. You can see how they run between the bearers.
A stack of toeboards roughly cut to size. The pipes will stand on these.
The toeboards are then laid out on the windchest.
Lyndon drills holes for the screws that hold the toeboards to the windchest grid.
Jim is countersinking the toeholes for some of the 5,000+ pipes.
Inside the windchest are boards on which are mounted special magnets that open the main windchest valves. Incorporated into these boards are additional small “relief” valves that relieve the pressure against the main valve, allowing it to open more gracefully. Art is drilling the many holes in these boards.
Some of the completed magnet boards.
The magnet boards being wired before being installed in the slider windchests.
Bob Savage surrounded by five electric slider windchests, now fitted with pulldown and relief magnets.
These are the solenoids that move the windchest sliders.
John uses a block plane to bevel the edges of a piece of spotted metal that, after rounding and soldering, will become the body of a pipe. The metal is painted with a material that resists solder; the planing exposes a bevel of metal to which the solder will adhere. The paint is washed off when the pipes are finished.
Bill scores the foot of a pipe to receive a soldered-in lower lip.
These crates hold the tin façade pipes, which were made by Carl Giesecke & Sohn of Göttingen, Germany. There are two 16' and two 8' stops in the façade.
Large bass pipes are stored upside down so their toes won't be flattened by standing on the floor. Smaller pipes are stored in special trays, which are held in the racks seen on the right.
Randy is making the supporting steel framework that will allow the console to be movable.
The console framework, painted and fitted with casters.
Randy is making the Gothic tracery that will be a part of the console.
The console side and bracket under the keydesk.
Special forms have to be made to laminate the curved members for the great case towers. Here, plywood pieces are glued that will serve as the base or support for the solid wood mouldings.
Smaller-radiused towers have similar forms, which are here being glued with band clamps.
There are a lot of round pieces.
Kent constructing the parts of the impost that incorporate the round towers.
The organ has four enclosed divisions with a total of 198 swell shades. These are some of the glued up blanks that will be resawn into shades of butcher-block construction.
John voicing the Swell Hautbois.
Bill curves a tongue from the Swell Basson 16'.
Tuning the same note to check the result.
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