Saxophone chests
These are simpler than the other unit chests in that there are no internal pneumatics.
Puffs mounted underneath serve to directly open the pallets. These were re-leathered
and fitted together with new phosphor bronze springs. The puff-boards were re-leathered
and (latterly installed separately onto the main chest) fitted to the bottom
of the chests as had been done originally. On top of the two chests are fitted
sliders for shutting off the reed ranks during tuning.
When it came to sorting out the wind trunking to these chests I found that they had been connected to the wrong channels in the main chest, where sits the wide channel and large pallet for the register ventil. It had been transposed with that of the violin register. The reason for this is unclear, but one possibility is that the wrong channel had been opened out and fitted with the supplementary ventil, by mistake. That had been done in 1990 (not by me, I hasten to add) to aid the supply to the saxophones and make them easier to tune. I never found this necessary on my numerous tunings of this organ after my original work on it. Suffice to say that I reverted the trunking to its original configuration.
The chests were given a coat of shellac on all external surfaces, and mounted in their correct positions on the main chest and their action thoroughly checked on the wind. More pictures here.
Violin chest installation
Installing the violin chest followed, firstly by mounting its puff-rail. This
needed to be tubed to nipples at the back of the saxophone chests, then set
into position on guide pegs. These had been mounted on the two saxophone chests.
They were not original, but worked, so they were retained. They allowed the
violin chest to be removed without the need to disconnect any action tubing.
Now came the task of positioning the violin chest over the puff-rail in exactly the right position in relation to the back ends of the levers. Not an easy job as it was impossible to see. So I decided to fit wooden dowels at each end, carefully calculated to locate into holes drilled in the underside of the chest itself. I couldn't rely on the original holes for the mounting screws, as these had been plugged during the restoration process. Once the chest was in position and its wind trunking connected, it was thoroughly tested on the wind, tweaking the lower springs as necessary. Risers and veneers (blocks to take the pipe feet) were added in readiness for the pipes themselves which were still being restored in London. More pictures here.
At this point the trombone pipes were re-installed. Working in the reverse order of removal, the pipes were installed one by one, fitting them into position and using brackets to hold them in place. As they wouldn't be fully accessible later each was checked on the wind and tuned once in position, to make sure all was well. Having done this the barrier panel could be installed. This is a fret-work panel decorated with palms, mounted from the roof. This separates the front pipework from the back. However, subsequent to fitting, a couple of splits appeared. Fortunately, this was not easily visible after all pipes and façade had been installed, but was a clear indication that my fears about the lorry's condition were well-founded.
Register box
Register changes are activated by holes in strategic positions on the music
card. The impulses created need to be remembered to keep the required registers
operating. The "memory" for this is the Register Box. The VB scale
has provision for four registers, but for some unknown reason this particular
organ has only three. The register box, therefore, has three latches which hold
the registers on. This small item is quite intricate, as shown in the picture
here, of its constituent parts. The three pallets, six puffs, nine springs,
and three latches all received careful attention, and the box re-assembled and
sealed with new gaskets. It was then mounted back in its position and connected
to its wind supply, and tested. More pictures here.
Reed pipes
An on-going job at home was the restoration of the reed pipes - or more accurately,
their boots. Flue pipes have feet to stand on, but the reeds have boots.
"Boot" is the name given to the cover for the "works" of a reed pipe, (the resonators above serving to help shape the tone and stabilise tuning) and boot is also used for the whole assembly, which includes a block into which is mounted a shallot and tongue anchored by a wedge, and a tuning spring fitted through a hole in the block. This spring is moved up or down to vary the vibrating length of the tongue to tune the pipe. The springs on most of the reeds in this organ were still the original steel, which was very rusty, so I needed to make new ones in phosphor bronze. A few were already in PB but wrongly shaped. They need a good spring action to maintain contact with the tongues at all times and hold them against their shallots. At the same time they must be able to move freely when tuning and not build up a tension which could work its way out later and spoil the tuning.
Some shallots are leathered,
so these were inspected. There's no point in removing perfectly good leather
here, as it's not required to move, just to sit there and help create a mellower
sound. A few needed renewing but most had hardly deteriorated in the last 20
years - they were all done in 1983. A few of the tongues were obviously wrongly
curved, but this job was left for later when the pipes coud be placed on their
chests together with their flue helpers. They would then receive the correct
pressure, a very important criteria for reeds.
The pipes' resonators all needed their own special kind of attention. The trombones, the largest in to organ, needed checking for splits in their mitred joints. This is a common problem in trombones, as they are bracketed to the organ's roof and any movement in the case when on the road could cause these joints to split. Sure enough, this had happened on several of the pipes. These mitres needed to be fully taken apart so I could get to the joints properly and glue them back together. Clamping them is difficult due to the angles and convolutions.
The box reed resonators (saxophones, baritones, clarinets,and bass and accompaniment reeds in the back of the organ) all needed treatment. They are fitted with metal regulating slides, most of which needed replacing. The others were polished. They all needed to be specially shaped to keep their positions without falling down and spoiling the tuning and regulation. A reed resonator is tuned to the pipe's pitch to aid the tongue itself. The timbre of the pipe can be adjusted by varying the resonator length in relation to the optimum. This is where the slide comes in, and should only be moved to set the timbre, the actual tuning being set by moving the spring. Trumpet resonators cannot be altered in this way.
Resonators of all the reeds showing at the front of the organ were painted in the colours last used when in the Irvin ownership, except the box reed fronts, which were gilded by Colin Dundas, who had been engaged to take care of the decoration of the façade. However, the resonators sat in his workshop for several months before he got round to them. He began work on the baritone case first (a full 15 months after being given the job), as I would need that to re-assemble the glockenspiel. More pictures here.
Glockenspiel
While the baritone case was being decorated I worked on the glockenspiel units.
The actions had been taken apart and cleaned out. The steel bars had already
been freshly chromium plated, using a specialist requiring a round trip of 120
miles on two occasions. The main motors are unique to Marenghi in that their
valve action is contained internally, like bass-drum motors, but in miniature.
These needed complete dis-assembly. The valves were re-leathered, the springs
were renewed, and the assemblies re-built. The motors themselves were re-leathered
with the inclusion of new card ribbing.
The steel beaters were fitted onto their mounting rails after being given a coat of red Hammerite. They were held by pairs of small brass clamps and screws. One of the clamps was missing, having been replaced by a simple washer. I just happened to have a piece of brass sheet of exactly the right thickness, so made a new one using that, including the intricate decorated shape on one end.
I couldn't wait for the baritone case to be finished, so arranged with Colin for me to work on it in his workshop, and the glock units were fitted into it. These units cannot be pre-assembled, but fitted into the case bit-by-bit. At the point of fitting the beaters I waited until Colin had finished, then completed the job. More pictures here.
Installation of pipes
Before fitting pipes, their channels were blown out. This was done before each
rank was installed, to ensure no debris or dust could be trapped in the windways
and get stuck in the pipes' narrow channels later. I achieved this very quickly
using the stickers at the back of the main chest. It was for this reason I resisted
the urge to fit the relay and keyframe until the very last minute. To have worked
through the relevant notes using a scale music book would have taken hours longer,
and worn out the book in the process.
The trombones were already in, so the next pipes to be installed were the basses and accompaniments in the back. All pipes for each note were needed so I could check their speech on the wind. Several pipes speaking from wind in a common channel don't all receive the same pressure, so individual checking wouldn't have meant anything. I fitted the basses, but came to a halt as there were two ranks of accompaniments with Judith. As the first row of these pipes needed to be stayed from the front of the organ I could go no further. The saxophone trumpets could have gone in, but they would have made it impossible to get to that first stay in the back. Little did I know at that time it would be a full six months before I could continue.
In the middle of July 2005 I travelled to London to collect the pipes from Judith, and installed the remaining accompaniments. Of course, as with all flue pipes from Judith, I had to tension the tuning slides. Judith always leaves them flat, relying on their width to keep them tight in their slots. Unfortunately, changes in humidity render this approach disastrous. In dry weather the slots pull in, compressing the timber, so in damper weather the slides have room to move, and move they do - very easily. However, eventually, the basses and accompaniments were ready for testing. Note by note they were tuned and found to be speaking well. The box reeds, fitted with slides, needed to be carefully regulated for a good sound, by moving the slides to their optimum positions.
Then came the task of removing all these pipes again so they could be fixed permanently in position and stayed upright. Each pipe in turn had its foot wiped with a shellac-soaked cloth and gently tapped into position. A combination square ensured they were upright. Then each complete rank was stayed using the original beech stays and new brass screws. Finding a supplier for such screw sizes as 5/8" no. 6 slotted brass roundhead, or 3/8" 3s at a resonable price was made easier by use of the internet.
After fitting, all pipes needed to be blown out to rid them of debris left after drilling the stay holes. This was easily done with the flues using a length of plastic tube fitted to a balloon hand-pump. The reeds were not so simple. To prevent any debris dropping into the shallots I marked the positions of the stay holes, took each pipe out again for drilling and knocking bits out, then replacing them permanently. It was at this stage that I made the final bend in the tuning springs. Up to this point they could be completely removed to gain unrestricted access to the tongue/shallot assemblies if found necessary.
I then turned my attention to the clarinet mixture pipes, to be mounted centrally on the back chest. It was then that I realised that there was a rank missing. So all the pipes I had were laid out, including violins and piccolos. Another rank was missing from the violins. This meant another trip to South London. Judith might have been able to make it by train with one rank, but not two. She needed to come to the yard to assist in the process of checking the voicing and regulation on the correct channels with all ranks speaking together, impossible on the voicing machine back at her workshop. She came back with me and the missing pipes, travelling on July 21st 2005, the very day of the second London bombing attempt. The 1½-hour journey down took 3 hours. I decided to wait around before making the return journey in the evening. This took over 2½ hours.
Next day I was raring to get on with the final stage of the job. The end was in sight at last. The clarinet mixture pipes were installed, culminating with the trumpet, all handled as previously described. Then moving all the tools round to the front of the organ, I began with the saxophones, comprising saxophone reed, trumpet and flue helper. First the trumpets were installed. Their tuning springs were originally long enough to protrude at the top, waving about in the breeze, so with the help of a photo taken from the front with the piccolos in position, I had cut them down so they could be accessed through the gaps between notes, above the piccolos. Then followed the flue helpers which had, in fact, been pre-fitted earlier, and in the process found that some of the feet (very long, to bring the pipe tops into a pleasing line above the sax reeds) were not fitting well. Some time spent with a large file did the trick. Finally, the saxophone reeds were installed. This was the first gilded rank to be fitted, and extreme care was taken to avoid touching their fronts. I had decided to paint their stays red, as had been done prior to my involvement in the early 1980s. I had a photograph showing red stays on the saxophone, clarinet and baritone pipes. More pictures here. More on installation of the pipes here.