I’m overloaded with work at the moment, and Mr Norwich Organs is booked up to the end of the year. And on top of that, I’m likely to be moving house imminently.
So, a temporary hiatus is now in effect, probably until January.
Category: Hauptwerk
Back to work
An unplanned hiatus has come to an end. Mr Norwich Organs was over this evening, and we gradually dismantled the bottom of the console to extract the kneeboard and toe piston mouldings. My plan is to put in a third expression pedal to control the solo, so the kneeboard and moulding to the right foot side will need to be altered. This may, or may not, result in the loss of one or two toe pistons. However, since I have got rather more than I originally wanted (21 as opposed to 12), I won’t be losing sleep over it. We also discussed power requirements, and a Plan has been hatched.
David thinks he might have a matching expression pedal, which would be ideal. Otherwise, he will find me three other matching pedals from his stash. The hole in the kneeboard will be extended, but by how much depends on which route we take. Once the kneeboard is back in place, the expression pedals can be fitted, and the toe piston mouldings can be rebuilt accordingly.
Quite tired now, and enjoying a cup of tea.
In which not very much happens
The spare keyboards went to a new home today. David is coming round next week to discuss how to wire up the drawstops, and I am waiting for the ever-helpful Roman Sowa of midi-hardware.com to get back to me about the extra components I need to drive them. I think I know what is required, but it’s best to check before I commit to an order.
I also need to do, or at least arrange to be done, a bit of carpentry on the kneeboard and the toe piston mouldings. Adding an extra expression pedal for the solo division will eat up 5½” of space to the right of the extant two pedals. This will perforce eat up 2½ toe-piston spaces. There is space on the left for at least one more toe-piston, possibly even two, but the half-a-space means that I can’t simply chop off a bit of the moulding on the right-foot side. Instead, David will need to create a replacement moulding. It’s possible that he will need to create a replacement for the left-foot side as well, if his forms aren’t the same as those used by Wyvern. They should be, but who knows?
So things are happening. They just aren’t happening right this very instant.
In dog-related news, Dewi is settling in reasonably well. There is some challenging behaviour, but only to be expected of a young dog who has had a terrible start in life. I don’t think he is broken beyond repair; he just needs a bit of love, firmness, and consistency. However, he has learned the Two Great Commandments of this house, namely: First, thou shalt respect Bailey at all times, and not wait until she is asleep before thou jumpest-on her to demand playtime. And the second is likewise: thou shalt not covet Bailey’s food, nor her toys, nor anything that is hers, and most especially not when she is eating or playing with them. Bailey is by nature a sweet and amiable dog, but at 50kg of mostly muscle, she is quite capable of being intimidating when she wants to be.
All undone
Apart from the control boards for the drawstops, everything has now been stripped out of the new console ready for rebuilding.
The transformer in the bottom left steps 240VAC down to 12VAC, and the little blue things behind it rectify the current to 20.4VDC. This is the power required for the drawstops, and will be put to good use. At some point, David will, I hope, build me a 12VDC linear psu for the rest of the electronics. Until then, I have my trusty (and cheap) switched-mode psu from A Random eBay Seller.
Those keyboards are in fact the new manuals. This is what they look like from the front:
They are sloping towards the player, and the stack is consequently about 1.5cm higher than the stack it replaced. This will require modifications to the music stand, but I have Plans for that anyway.
Tomorrow, the old console is bid a fond farewell, and there will be a general reorganisation of the lounge. I will then be off with Bailey to look at potential new packmates. She’s not happy being the only dog in the house, and I sympathise.
More stripping out
Slowly, imperceptibly, the console becomes lighter. The Bradford boards and pre-amp have now been removed (and will shortly be finding a temporary home in David’s shed, pending being used for parts). I have another potential user of the keyboard scanners (under the keyboards) and stop motor controllers (far left and right), and the small Voltages transformer (far left, on the side of the console). I have also got a taker for the keyboards, I hope, so even though the old Wyvern organ is no more, in its demise will life be given to other instruments.
Not much more to do between now and Saturday, other than to detach the keyboards ready for their anticipated collection. Then next week I can resume putting it all back together. Only, ‘it’ is now something else.
Déjà vu all over again
I am slightly less busy today than I anticipated, so I decided to have a look at the new pedalboard. It was nice to see that the business end of the pedals on this pedalboard is almost exactly the same as on the other one. I gleefully stripped out the contacts (no photo, I was too excited) and made a start on fitting the reed switches. It took me much less time than before, probably due to this being the second time around.
There is further testing to be done, and minor adjustments to be made, but the bulk of the work of adapting the pedalboard of the new console is now complete.
Now I must go back to work, or I might start dismantling other things and then I will be in trouble tomorrow.
The strip-out begins…
I am champing at the bit, but David from Norwich Organs has forbidden me from diving in with a knife and fork. Removal of components shall be done at a stately, unhurried pace. I am forbidden to remove the old manuals until he has explained his Big Idea to me on Monday. Fortunately I am very busy this weekend, so I shall not have to struggle with the urge to have at the console with my screwdriver.
This is what it looked like before I started:
It is a first-generation digital instrument, using the Bradford 5b 3-board system. It has eight speakers (including two 350W monsters), four of which are in a separate cabinet. Each set of four speakers is serviced by a Quad 405-2 amp. It looks like it was purchased in 1984, and received regular support and maintenance from Wyvern until 1997. There are several versions of the spec chips between these two dates, so presumably over the years the organist(s) had varying ideas of how it should sound in the church wherein it was installed. An instrument of this size will have pushed the Bradford system of the era to its limits. It looks as if it has not been played for several years, and as a consequence the battery has discharged and whizzed all over several of the circuit boards that comprise its brain. Restoration might be possible, with a great deal of effort, but really its day of doom has come.
David wants the speakers and amps, so I have carefully removed them ready for him to collect, and it now looks like this (note the pre-amp still in situ, on the right of the first photo):
I want to fiddle with the transformers, but that is Not Allowed either, until discussions have been had. It’s very frustrating, but I know the intention is to prevent me from removing something that I actually need – or that can be sold. I will be patient.
The old console goes a week tomorrow. By then I should have removed most of the innards of the new console, which will (I hope) make it somewhat easier to move into the centre of the lounge while it is being worked on. Eventually it will need to go next to the wall, but that is a problem for another month.
So, umm, this happened…
I am a gadfly. A flibbety-gibbet. A floosie. I have abandoned my old console in favour of a new model.
It wasn’t planned, but when it popped up on eBay, I knew it was too good an opportunity to pass up. This little beauty travelled all they way from Devonshire to Norfolk this week. It is extraordinarily heavy, and the movers did a sterling job (which, once again, involved taking the front door off).
Much as I love the old console, it was becoming increasingly apparent that it would not be easy to modify it to do the things I need it to do. The toe-pistons being the most obdurate sticking-point. You will observe that the new console has toe pistons in abundance (21, in fact). It also has drawstops. Yes, they are actual, genuine, functional Kimber Allen mini drawstops.
The old console has been sold, and will be collected sometime next week, but in the meantime I have started to do a little bit of stripping out. In actual fact, very little of the work that I have done so far will need to be re-done on the new console, apart from putting in the pedal reed switches again. Almost everything else that I have done has been confined to the manuals, which will be transferred into the new console.
I have started to put things on eBay, and hopefully I will recoup some of the cost (£637, including transport) by doing that. So far, the external speaker cabinet and two (!) Quad amps are up for sale. Mr Norwich Organs has been round, examined the console and pronounced it a good purchase, and has also put in claims on a few of the components. The manuals will hit eBay in a week or so, too.
The main thing I need to think about is how to put in the stops for the solo division. This will need to be a touchscreen. I have some ideas, but I need to think about it. That is for the future, though.
Exciting new developments!
Developing (excitedly) as I type. More to come!
*does the happy dance*
An update
So the last few weeks have not been particularly fun. Betty took ill, and then died last week. It was expected (she was a very old dog, with numerous serious ailments) but it still hit me hard. Consequently I haven’t been in the mood for organ building, or writing about it. Bailey has decided that now would be a good time to come into season (well planned, since she was due to be speyed on Thursday). Everything feels a bit flat.
There has been a little progress in recent days. I have continued to make minor adjustments to the magnets on the pedalboard, and am now reasonably happy with them. I have also installed a micro-DIN plug in the connecting cable, to make it easier to remove the pedalboard. I will have to do the same thing for the expression pedal connectors, when they are eventually installed, as these feed into the pedalboard MIDI module via a short connector cable.
I’ve also purchased twelve toe-pistons, ready for installation when the kneeboard is re-jigged (approximately some time soonish). Currently amusing the parental units, so no further updates for a week or so. The next task is to screw down the manuals and connect the thumb pistons. I might then be able to produce some noise.