Discovering the Organ
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| Unused and in the way at the university |
Or should I say re-discovering the organ. In the spring of 2010, my former organ professor, David Palmer, informed me, with an eager smile, that the practice organ at the University of Windsor was for sale! What a surprise. I was in no way searching for an organ. Yet, it piqued my interest. The organ, a three rank mechanical action pipe organ with two manuals and a 32 note concave radiating AGO pedalboard, was built in 1974 by London ON builder Gabriel Kney at the height of his career. Opus 70, of 128 in total, has three ranks: an 8' Gedeckt on the lower manual, a 4' Rorhflote on the upper manual and a wooden 8' Gedecktbass on the pedal. There are three drawstops: one for the pedal, (the manuals are always on and have no controls) a coupler to link I to II, and a coupler to link II to Pedal.
Until 1974, the organ students at the school took lessons and practices at two local churches. By 1974, five organ majors were enrolled and the school contracted Kney to provide a teaching and practice instrument.
The organ was fabricated in London. The keyboards were made by Laukhuff in Germany. The pedal rank was made in Gabriel's shop. The two metal flue ranks were made by Killinger in Germany. Christoph Ulmer of Killinger verified this by examining pictures of the pipe stamps.
Having had no organ students for the last six years, and facing an expensive cost to move the instrument to the new location of the School of Music, the insturment was deemed surplus. So I went down and had a look see.
Yup, there it was, forlorn and neglected. With two harpsichords leaning against its back and a tuba case leaning against its side, it was almost shivering in fear. Pieces of masking tape were attched to it.
The room has long since been squatted by the percussion students in drastic need of storage and practice space. Various persussion instruments and cases filled the room. It reminded me of the Star Wars scene where Luke Skywalker goes to a droid junkyard and restores two beat up and neglected robots. Could I do the same?
The organ was out of tune, out of repair, some notes spoke all the time, others never spoke. I took measurements and concluded that it would fit, within an inch in my music room. But it would be very crowded. it. Long story short, I had an organ.
Getting it Home
I had to get it out of there myself, as is. It took three days. It does not exactly come with a manual. I got stuck with the removal of the keyboards. We could not, for the life of us, figure out how to take them out. Even Gabriel, by email, could offer no suggestions, as the plans were long gone.
I remember when it was installed in 1974. I was a second year Bachelor of Music organ major and even helped carry it in. Gabriel delivered it in a Ryder truck and needed a hand with some of the bulkier parts. I spent many hours of practice and instruction on the little organ. I estimate there are approximately 20,000 hours of use on the organ. So there was wear and tear. There were also signs of abuse, likely unintended. One pipe was smashed beyond hope. (It has been replaced.) It may have been struck by something through the grill. Maybe a bow, or a broom handle.
Finally, we found hidden screws that were only visible after upper manual keys were lifted out, one by one. With a pickup truck and a minivan, we pulled out the pipes, pedals, upper enclosure, grill, covers and keyboards. This left a hulk about the size of a piano, but a bit lighter. The blower was taken out. It does not like to be tipped sideways, which was necessary. Long story short, all the parts filled my garage.
Putting it Back Together
The next three days involved cleaned nearly 40 years of dust. Two days later, I had managed to get everything back into place. It worked! There remained the cyphers and dead notes. Now I was faced with a new hobby: pipe organ technician.
Back to 1974. I graduated two years later with a music degree. After which, I spent 5 months in the pipe organ trade working for the area Casavant rep. I had high hopes of having a career in this field. My exposure, though limited, still gave me experience on 75 individual units, or jobs, as Len Jeffs called them. Five months does not make one an expert. More like ten years to master the nuances. Even that may not give one enough time to master the black art of voicing. Nevertheless, Jeffs was at the end of a long storied career. Those five months were a priceless boon that would now come in handy. Suffice it to say that I learned enough to be dangerous!
The Restoration
One had to be an organ techinican to even consider buying such an instrument. It required a lot of repair and overhaul. The felts were all very worn, and all adjustments were out. And a lot of things were just plain broken. The first big problem was that of the effect of the dry air on leather pulldown connectors. Kney connected his pallets, which are the valves in the windchest under the pipes that open to admit air to each pipe, to the pulldown wires by a little piece of leather. The connectors suffered greatly under 37 years of overy dry commercial forced air heating and cooling. They dried out and became very brittle, suseptible to tears. They had to be replaced. Organ Supply Industries sold such parts, but they turend out to be too thick. A second type were tried: they were also too thick. Finally, they gave me some leather stock of the correct thickness and I made my own. Many hours later, they were all replaced.
The first photo was taken when I first inspected the organ in the studio at the University of Windsor. There are numerous little piece of making tape that were stuck on the wood that are visible in the photo. I am told that one of the last students place them there to help practicing the activation of preset thumb pistons that are normally present on larger instruments. They had been there for perhaps ten years. Much of the wood came off with them. Luckily, I was able to restore the finish and colour.
Those attractive keys feature ebony naturals and padouk sharps. Padouk is of African or Asian origin. It is usued for its tough, stability and decorative reddish colour. There was 37 years and 20,000 hours of dust and finger grime that were caked and embedded on them. They finally were cleaned with about ten treatments of orange furniture oil, soaking, deep rubbing, and polishing.
The case had numerous nicks and scratches. The bench had some black stains and numerous little dents. It appears that somone used the bench as a work bench and repeatedly struck an area of the bench with a metal object. Well, a combination of sanding, shoe polish and Pledge Orange Oil worked miracles. That wood was thirsty for nourishing oil. Fortunately, the case and bench were not varnished or shellaqued, but treated with oil. Lots of elbow grease and Orange oil saved the day.
Also, most of the felt punchings were replaced. Thankfully, OSI carries a complete supply of various parts. Punching are little circular discs of felt that silence noise and damp vibration at various contact points in the action as the movement travels from the key to the pallet valve under the pipe. Over 500 on these, dirty and banged up, were replaced.
And action adjustments. Oh my. There are hundreds of adjustments here. Long story short, they were adjusted, adjusted and adjusted. There are three barrel adjusters for each note. And two more for the couplers. Multiplied by 144. Finally, everything was working. The notes now sound with a
