John Page - organ builder

Organ restoration - part 4

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Façade decoration
While I fitted pipes, Colin Dundas was working on the organ's fabulous façade. The main proscenium arch had been done, with the removal of the "IRVIN" lettering which had been screwed onto the panel. It was found that there had been nothing below this, which was surprising, as the organ was not new when Irvins acquired it. Perhaps the previous owner had screwed on his own panel in one piece, and some the Irvin (individual) letters had used the same screw holes. It was later discovered that the previous owner, probably from new, had been Pat Collins. The word "Walsall" had been revealed while removing paint which had lifted when the new coat had unexpectedly reacted with it. Following this arch piece, the drum-cases were tackled, and then the top proscenium, in three pieces. Lastly came the end wings, used to conceal the keyframe and operator, and the music books at one end, and the blower and motor at the other. These wings had not been with the organ from new, borne out by the different carving style.

This part of the restoration was undertaken by Colin as a separate contract, but recommended by me. His initial brief was to restore the façade to its appearance when new. The work was to be mainly cosmetic, with a minimum of repair work to the carvings. There had been many holes drilled in various parts of the carvings to accommodate light bulbs. Some of these were still open, but most had already been plugged and painted over. These plugs were showing signs of shrinkage and had to be re-done. There were also several splits in the carvings and lots of minor handling damage. In fact, as the work progressed it was evident that much more time was needed to make a good job, worthy of this well-known organ. As there was no easy way to determine the original colours it was agreed to use basically similar colours to those used most recently, and this included the colour scheme of the pipework. Colin made some alterations to the colouring for more consistency in the overall scheme.

It was decided to use gold on those parts that had latterly been in flamboyant, which is no longer readily available. 23½ carat gold leaf was chosen as the medium, not varnished but left clear so the real gold sheen would show. In all over 70 books were used. Some deep colours were incorporated which, at first glance, looked too strong, but during a clean-up of one patch, a similar scheme was revealed underneath. The overall effect is very strong and bright, which is how these façades would have looked when new around 90-100 years ago. More pictures here.

Installation of pipes (part 2)
The violin pipes came next. As before, all tuning slides had been fitted flat, so I had the task of bending them to form tension in all 120 pipes, before finally fitting them into position and applying the original stays. Judith attended to the few still causing voicing problems, interspersed with spending time working through the only flue rank still not touched following its removal from the organ two years before - the baritone helpers.

Once I had finished the violins, the clarinet reed pipes followed. These are located in front of the violins, on their own riser. The riser itself hides the lever action below the violin chest and the bandmaster tubing. This latter fits onto small pieces of brass tube running through the riser so fitting the bandmaster is a simple matter. The clarinets, also gilded, were treated as the other reeds, locating the stay holes, removing the pipes for drilling and cleaning out, then fixing them in permanently. The 8 smallest of these pipes have no stays, so needed to be very securely fixed at ther feet. For this, I used rather more shellac than usual, but not so much that they couldn't be removed easily when necessary.

Following the clarinets came the piccolos, mounted on their risers on either side. The two ranks at the back are positioned alternately: open harmonic/stopped, and stayed in a row. In front of these are the brass pan-flutes, stayed by two beech strips one behind and one in front of the pipes, screwed together. Between these are the small open pipes, not stayed, but anchored at their feet.

Now all pipes on the main part of the organ were finally fitted. Only the baritones remained. These were mounted temporarily onto their chest which had been positioned on plastic crates in front of the organ. The chest had previously been tested for action, but not tubed up. For testing the pipes, tuning and setting the reeds' regulating slides I worked the actions from the levers beneath the chest. I hung a small weight on the levers so I had both hands free for the task. Once I was happy I removed the pipes once again and fitted the action tubing between the puff rail beneath the chest and the quick-release blocks on the front of the main organ.

I was now ready for the baritone case itself. Once hoisted onto the lowered panel on the lorry, suitably resting on trestles at the right height, the chest was fitted into it. The flue helpers were fitted and stayed at the back, then the case was brought to its final position at the front of the main case and bolted in. The reed pipes were then fitted in the same fashion as the other reeds, taking great care not to touch their gilded fronts. More pictures here.

Main action relay
Now I came to the climax of the whole job - the fitting of the main action relay and keyframe, connected with new plastic tubing. These constitute the organ's nerve-centre, and had been very meticulously restored, storing them in the organ lorry when done, in readiness for installation.

The relay comprises three main parts: primary puff-board, relay, and main puff-board. The two puff-boards were simply cleaned and re-leathered. New card discs were applied to the puffs, with those of the main board being smaller than before. This was to ease the flexibility of the puffs in operation. The relay itself had presented some unusual problems. Firstly, all its main assembly screws had been tightened down so many times that their countersunk heads were around 10mm deeper than they should be, with the tips of the screws beginning to pierce the puff spaces below. A simple solution would have been to fit cup washers, but, more authentically, I plugged all these holes and started again. Now the main problem was with the holes drilled through the top board to carry the stickers for opening the internal pallets. Over the years the timber had moved to the extent that these holes were no longer vertical. They leaned at up to 3 degrees. Consequently the external valves no longer adequately sealed off the disc exhaust valves. A solution had to be found, short of replacing the top board altogether.

I decided to replace the exhaust valves with flat pallets. These had to be low-profile to avoid the puff-board being mounted too high, so a new material was used. "Foamex" is a light-weight plastic foam with hard surfaces, and available in sheet form of various thicknesses. I chose 1.5mm. The pallets were leathered in the traditional way, and mounted in position with leather hinges at the back. Small wooden discs were glued to the pallets to be pressed down by the puffs above. Of course, this modification is completely reversible, and in no way compromises the true nature of the restoration. As with all the other action parts, all springs were renewed in phosphor bronze.

The two relay sections were positioned over the main chest's stickers and screwed down. A small amount of adjustment was necessary in height, but the job had been made far easier than previously by carefully setting the sticker lengths in advance. Once the four wind-trunk links were fitted - new Kopex was used as the previous set had begun to disintegrate - the action was tested on the wind. It would have been useless to merely blow by mouth into the relay inlet tubes as it needed the correct pressure, so I set-up a tube fitted into the hole reserved for the keyframe shut-off, not yet installed. Testing went completely without a hitch, mostly due to the relay having been tested at home when completed. More pictures here.

Keyframe and tubing
I was now ready to install the keyframe. Work had started on this a full 12 months earlier, dismantling and cleaning the parts - all 822 of them (excluding screws). A Marenghi keyframe is a nightmare piece of engineering; I can't understand why Charles Marenghi, who had been Gavioli's foreman, developed this design. It's easily the most complicated of the keyed keyframe layouts. The two "touch-boxes" are mounted vertically, with a common wind chamber. This is the simple part, as there is only one wind entry point, and all internal pallets and springs are held within, reached from one panel accessible from below. However, all the external "exhaust" pallets are actuated by levers which swing the action from vertical below the keys to horizontal, culminating in adjustable wires and buttons. Beneath these levers are two cam rods, one on each side, which serve to hold the keys in the down position when required, by actuating a handle on the front of the keyframe. This "muting" system needs to be accurately set-up to be out of the way during normal operation, but prevent the internal pallets opening when actuated. This, in conjunction with the other adjustments is very time-consuming. Not wanting to do it twice I decided to fit a new set of keys, so ordered some from Andrew Pilmer, and began to restore the touch-boxes. Re-leathering the pallets, I glued them furry side down, so the smooth side acts as the valve surface. This prevents dust getting caught up in the leather, and provides a more air-tight seal over the very small "land" when closed. Theoretically"wrong", but more reliable. The tiny springs were in very good condition, so I decided to re-use them after adjusting their shape.

The intermediate levers, mentioned above, had become somewhat rusty, so needed to be cleaned up. Ideally, they should have been cadmium plated, but as they were fitted with mahogany blocks for the adjusting wires, this would have been impractical. They were instead treated to a thin coat of Hammerite. The brass guides were cleaned and polished, and the levers re-fitted. The original springs were thoroughly de-greased and cleaned. They were re-used, as they were in good condition, and would have taken up much time re-forming their complicated shape. Upon re-assembly in the outer frame, all parts were then adjusted to work correctly and the levers tweaked to ensure their running in their guides without tightness, and to make sure thir keys sat on top - they are prone to slipping down the sides and jamming. The little pins serving as guides for the springs had begun to split the mounting blocks, so they were re-positioned; slightly staggered to help prevent the same thing happening again.

Afer five months I had given up on Andrew Pilmer supplying the keys, so re-ordered a set from Kevin Meayers at the beginning of March 2005. He had assured me that I would have them in three weeks. They never did materialise, so I had to re-use the old set. They were not completely worn out, and had some life left in them.

While adjusting the wires and buttons on the end of the levers, to set the keys at the correct height, I found several were beginning to slip their threads. This meant, to be safe, renewing them all with a new set made from slightly thicker phosphor bronze wire with their rolled threads set on the deep side. This exercise involved setting up the thread-rolling machine for wires not much longer than one inch, then forming loops on the wires' ends, for use as adjusting handles, without letting them bend too near the thread, as they would have been seriously weakened - rolling a thread on PB wire causes it to work-harden. New leather buttons were fitted to the wires once they had been threaded onto the levers. Then the setting-up process had to begin again. This was achieved on the dining-room table, being completed at the end of June 2005, and stored in the organ lorry until required.

Installing the keyframe on the end of the organ's main case involved setting up its wind supply, which is routed through a membrane muting box, in turn activated by a tiny valve block mounted on the keyframe. This is activted mechanically by the appropriate key. This valve block is connected to the wind supply through the normal tubing run, from a hole in the face-board of the main chest. Now getting round the organ would be more of an obstacle course. I had decided to re-utilize the original short tubing run from the bottom of the keyframe's touch-box to the manifold block mounted just inside the case at the end of the relay. Inspection found it to be sound, and a very neat and tidy piece of tubing. The tube's bore was on the small side, but as it was such a short run this would pose no problem, unlike the rest of the run inside the case, which had all been of the same small size.

Now I had to work out which tube outlet went to which relay action. I turned to my chart of the order of channels, and the note layout of VB music. I then worked systematically through with the scale book in the keyframe, writing down on the chart from which hole the wind blew. It was during this exercise that the problems began. Several of the keys failed to work, or failed to stop working. These keys had insisted on dropping down the sides of their actuating levers instead of sitting on top of them. I had meticulously tested this before, as described above. Something had moved while the keyframe was stored, but for the moment I was stuck with it, so I persevered. When the charting was complete, I set to work with my coil of plastic tube, snips and heat gun. Eight hours later it was done. More pictures here.

Drums
While working at home one of my tasks had been the cleaning of the drums and their action parts. The bass drum was brass, which needed polishing. There were two cymbals with the organ, so it was obvious that a replacement had been acquired some time previously. The one on the organ when the job was started had work hardened and cracked, so the other one was cleaned ready for use.

The snare drum had been replaced in the past with a modern one of dubious quality. Its snare actuation lever had been badly distorted, so this needed some major restoraton which entailed re-forming its operating cam. The drum had been fitted with a modern wire snare, so this was discarded in favour of more traditional gut. The heads were modern, too. However, the fitting of vellum was impossible without wood hoops, so the snare side was fitted with a transparent plastic head I happened to have in stock, spray painted with an off-white cellulose. The beater side was fitted with a fibre head, giving a more traditional sound. The drum's action had been dismantled and thoroughly cleaned.

As the drums had been last on my list of restoration tasks, re-assembly had not been done by the time Judith Howard arrived to check out the pipes. She agreed to stay on-site to help out, and undertook the task of re-assembly of the drum actions.

Worst nightmare scenario unfolds
While the last of the action was being fitted, during the August bank holiday weekend, both Graham Atkinson and his local representative Trevor Johnson were on hand. I asked if Mr Atkinson had received my fax, and he said not, so I handed him a copy - extract reproduced here. He said "Don't worry - I always pay my bills".

Trevor had visited several times in the last few weeks and expressed his keenness to help, but as he's not skilled in organ building there was nothing he could do. On one occasion, about two weeks before the organ left the yard, he undertook to paint the lorry's roof white - very welcome, but a little late. He had insisted that the organ would attend the Great Dorset Steam Fair regardless of its condition. I made it very clear that I was not happy with that idea, confirming my view that it should stay where it was until I was satisfied that it was in first class condition and ready for public scrutiny. My reputation and that of Graham Atkinson himself depended on it.

Panic was beginning to set in - not recommended for a serious job of this nature. Hurrying usually fosters more problems. Colin was struggling with the final pieces of the façade - the proscenium and side wings - despite having had enlisted help to speed things up. I asked Trevor to help mount the two drums into their respective side-cases. He exclaimed that he knew nothing about drums, but Judith came to his aid. I discovered later that the bass drum had been fitted back-to-front, compared to a photo I had taken when working on the organ before - there was a black mark in its centre at the front made by the beater. To be fair, it was the same on my photo of the organ just before being dismantled, but judith hadn't seen that. Also, one of the two snare drum actions was making a whirring sound, quickly identified as an indecisive movement of the operating valves. I rectified this by the application of an additional card disc on the puff.

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