And here's an even closer look at the state of the console keyboards etc...
Thursday, December 3, 2009
The Warren Console...Before
Ross showed me a couple of pictures he took of the Warren Console back in 1994 before restoration work began. As you can see from the photos below, the console was in pretty rough shape. Ross says some people thought it was a lost cause.
And here's an even closer look at the state of the console keyboards etc...
And here's an even closer look at the state of the console keyboards etc...
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Thurday Nov. 19th at the OB.
Hello everyone,
Another short report.
As previously mentioned we had a dead pickup on the 8ft E of the orch. keyboard, so today Jack removed a pickup IC from the Acc. keyboard and installed it on the Orch. Problem seemed to be cured, then it became intermittent again. Since we had also had the same note mis-behave on the solo keyboard last week, Jack surmised, correctly, that the problem might be in the test unit which allows for calibration of the keys using an LED for each key contact. After some work with an Ohm meter he found a loose connection in one of the cable connectors from the tester, fixing this cured the problem. So is this a case of one wrong makes two rights?
We have had a dead key in the Orch. keyboard for at least a year, the top note. Turned out to be a missing magnet on the pickup. Probably fell out of the shrink tubing. Again one was borrowed from the Acc and installed with a dab of hot hide glue. Problem fixed. So now we have two keyboards wth all notes working, keys leveled and the pickups set to the same key depressions. The Acc keyboard has been returned to Ross's shop. Downside is we have no general cancel button now.
While this was going on Ross went down to the basement and took out the two valve rods in the original factory built Wurly regulator and confirmed the lengths were correct on his manufacturing drawings. This arose because we found the two rods in the on stage regulator for the Kinura and Style D trumpet, built by Roy Parrish, were not the correct length. Ross replaced a broken wind line connector and he and Jack re-installed the regulator. Unfortunately in the process we somehow created a huge windleak between the regulator and the wind trunk, and we had to start over, so this will have to be taken care of next trip. Also the little dowel that holds the over travel dump valve in the original regulator, now on the RM tibia, had disappeared and will have to be replaced next trip.
Ross also got some green paint to match the walls of the theatre and painted a number of our wires and connectors so they will be invisible to patrons in the theatre. (And to Murray).
BTW he is showing that just released twilite moon movie at 10 pm tnite, sold out in hours at $12 each. He is showing the original version using our DVD projector, followed by the new film release. That little 150 watt bulb produces a really good picture, great resolution, and equal in brightness to his 2KW lamp in the film projector.
That is it for now. Not exactly a great day.
Salut
Ross
Another short report.
As previously mentioned we had a dead pickup on the 8ft E of the orch. keyboard, so today Jack removed a pickup IC from the Acc. keyboard and installed it on the Orch. Problem seemed to be cured, then it became intermittent again. Since we had also had the same note mis-behave on the solo keyboard last week, Jack surmised, correctly, that the problem might be in the test unit which allows for calibration of the keys using an LED for each key contact. After some work with an Ohm meter he found a loose connection in one of the cable connectors from the tester, fixing this cured the problem. So is this a case of one wrong makes two rights?
We have had a dead key in the Orch. keyboard for at least a year, the top note. Turned out to be a missing magnet on the pickup. Probably fell out of the shrink tubing. Again one was borrowed from the Acc and installed with a dab of hot hide glue. Problem fixed. So now we have two keyboards wth all notes working, keys leveled and the pickups set to the same key depressions. The Acc keyboard has been returned to Ross's shop. Downside is we have no general cancel button now.
While this was going on Ross went down to the basement and took out the two valve rods in the original factory built Wurly regulator and confirmed the lengths were correct on his manufacturing drawings. This arose because we found the two rods in the on stage regulator for the Kinura and Style D trumpet, built by Roy Parrish, were not the correct length. Ross replaced a broken wind line connector and he and Jack re-installed the regulator. Unfortunately in the process we somehow created a huge windleak between the regulator and the wind trunk, and we had to start over, so this will have to be taken care of next trip. Also the little dowel that holds the over travel dump valve in the original regulator, now on the RM tibia, had disappeared and will have to be replaced next trip.
Ross also got some green paint to match the walls of the theatre and painted a number of our wires and connectors so they will be invisible to patrons in the theatre. (And to Murray).
BTW he is showing that just released twilite moon movie at 10 pm tnite, sold out in hours at $12 each. He is showing the original version using our DVD projector, followed by the new film release. That little 150 watt bulb produces a really good picture, great resolution, and equal in brightness to his 2KW lamp in the film projector.
That is it for now. Not exactly a great day.
Salut
Ross
Friday, November 13, 2009
Thursday Nov 12th at the OB
Just a quick update.
Gerry took the bottoms off the string and celeste chests and checked the magnets and for cold or chrystalized solder joints. Two magnets were replaced and a number of cold joints repaired. One bolt anchor was replaced as the bolt was cross threaded, and the anchor is now glued in place with epoxy. Notes that were cyphering had the magnet discs checked for dirt.
Ross stapled up the wires to the console in the corner, and will paint them green next trip. He also gooped up numerous holes in the drywall between the chambers, and in the stair well. This should help keep dirt out of the chambers. Shortly we can vacuum the entire organ.
Jack worked on the keyboards. It is pointless to try and tune the organ, or search for dead notes without reliable keyboards. The 8 ft E of the solo keyboard had a bit of rubbery yellow dirt on the end of the magnet, once this was removed all notes worked. The orchestral keyboard coincidentally also had an inoperative 8 ft E. This turned out to be a dead Hall effect pickup IC, it will have to be replaced. The key heights, and the trip points on both of these keybaords have been adjusted.
The Accompaniment keyboard was turning on all 12 notes of the bottom octave whenever any of these keys was pressed. Seems to be related to a cold or no solder joint on the pickup for the B key. Jack tried to repair it but the thru hole plating seems to be broken. The keyboard is here at my shop and I will take it to Dave next week. We also have one note in the pedals that needs adjusting. These wood screw adjusters keep working their way loose, maybe we will replace them with bolts with Nylock nuts.
Aside from all that, nothing else to report.
Salut
Ross
Gerry took the bottoms off the string and celeste chests and checked the magnets and for cold or chrystalized solder joints. Two magnets were replaced and a number of cold joints repaired. One bolt anchor was replaced as the bolt was cross threaded, and the anchor is now glued in place with epoxy. Notes that were cyphering had the magnet discs checked for dirt.
Ross stapled up the wires to the console in the corner, and will paint them green next trip. He also gooped up numerous holes in the drywall between the chambers, and in the stair well. This should help keep dirt out of the chambers. Shortly we can vacuum the entire organ.
Jack worked on the keyboards. It is pointless to try and tune the organ, or search for dead notes without reliable keyboards. The 8 ft E of the solo keyboard had a bit of rubbery yellow dirt on the end of the magnet, once this was removed all notes worked. The orchestral keyboard coincidentally also had an inoperative 8 ft E. This turned out to be a dead Hall effect pickup IC, it will have to be replaced. The key heights, and the trip points on both of these keybaords have been adjusted.
The Accompaniment keyboard was turning on all 12 notes of the bottom octave whenever any of these keys was pressed. Seems to be related to a cold or no solder joint on the pickup for the B key. Jack tried to repair it but the thru hole plating seems to be broken. The keyboard is here at my shop and I will take it to Dave next week. We also have one note in the pedals that needs adjusting. These wood screw adjusters keep working their way loose, maybe we will replace them with bolts with Nylock nuts.
Aside from all that, nothing else to report.
Salut
Ross
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Thursday at the OB
Jack and I were at the OB today.
Jack re-installed the bottom on the OD chest. I had replaced 4 pouches that were torn. This allowed us to get the entire OD working and we tuned it. I have ordered a complete set of valve faces and discs and we will re-leather and upgrade this chest later.
We operated all of the 8 foot octave of the RM trumpet looking for the magnet that we thought might be staying on with residual magnetism. After a 10 minute test we found the D pipe was inoperative, looks like the magnet has finally given up, so when we have time we will replace it. To do this we have to remove the 8 foot OD offset chest that is in front of it, then remove the trumpet offset. About a 2 hour job. Not a maintainer friendly design.
We have more keyboard problem, neither of the lower 2 keyboard works comletely, there are sticking keys and dead notes. We need to do something about solving this problem other than constantly adjusting them. Dave, how do we do this??
I put the last of the reeds into the Style D trumpet, we got the wind on, pipes were very weak kneed if they played at all. Tests with the water manometer showed only about 6 inches of wind, should be 10. This is one of the two regulators that Gilles Bruyere donated several years ago, made by rOY Parish for Gille's organ that never was finihed. We will replace it with one of the spares in the container that were built for the small Morton in storage, and I can rebuild it later. The problem is the fold boards are too narrow so it cannot rise up to the 6-3/8 overall height.
I showed Jack how to replace the leather nuts on the chryso. We regulated one valve seat on a sticking hammer pouch. After a trip to the foundry we stopped at the containers and dropped off the surplus pipe fittings from the windlines. We alo put out mouse poison in the FotoPlayer building. More next week.
Salut
Ross
Jack re-installed the bottom on the OD chest. I had replaced 4 pouches that were torn. This allowed us to get the entire OD working and we tuned it. I have ordered a complete set of valve faces and discs and we will re-leather and upgrade this chest later.
We operated all of the 8 foot octave of the RM trumpet looking for the magnet that we thought might be staying on with residual magnetism. After a 10 minute test we found the D pipe was inoperative, looks like the magnet has finally given up, so when we have time we will replace it. To do this we have to remove the 8 foot OD offset chest that is in front of it, then remove the trumpet offset. About a 2 hour job. Not a maintainer friendly design.
We have more keyboard problem, neither of the lower 2 keyboard works comletely, there are sticking keys and dead notes. We need to do something about solving this problem other than constantly adjusting them. Dave, how do we do this??
I put the last of the reeds into the Style D trumpet, we got the wind on, pipes were very weak kneed if they played at all. Tests with the water manometer showed only about 6 inches of wind, should be 10. This is one of the two regulators that Gilles Bruyere donated several years ago, made by rOY Parish for Gille's organ that never was finihed. We will replace it with one of the spares in the container that were built for the small Morton in storage, and I can rebuild it later. The problem is the fold boards are too narrow so it cannot rise up to the 6-3/8 overall height.
I showed Jack how to replace the leather nuts on the chryso. We regulated one valve seat on a sticking hammer pouch. After a trip to the foundry we stopped at the containers and dropped off the surplus pipe fittings from the windlines. We alo put out mouse poison in the FotoPlayer building. More next week.
Salut
Ross
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Thursday and Monday at the OB
Hello everyone,
Last Thursday was another productive day at the OB.
Jack and I tracked down the problem with the four Bourdon notes that has stopped playing. Seems we disconnected the ground wire over the on stage regulators when we were installing the big windlines. Jack re-connected it and now the Tuba offset also works. In the process we found that the wires from the driver card to the chests had the G and Gx pipes interchanged and this was also fixed.
Gerry continued with the windlines in the main chamber. He put the short pipe from the distribution box up to the clarinet chest back in place, after shortening it by about a quarter inch. He then connected the line from this box to the tremulant just inside the dividing wall between the chambers, a bit of magic here in trying to get the pipe around some wall studs, but it is finished. He also has the final windline about ready to complete from the eight foot diapason down to the line coming thru the floor from the basement, this line had to be moved to make space for the style D pipes.
Jack wrapped the 19 lowest pipe resonators with glued on paper, this prevents the resonators from getting stuck in the ferrules soldered to the reed blocks. If they get stuck we sometimes break off the ferrule from the boot trying to remove them. Next time he will do the same with the french horn and the Morton trumpet offset.
The Tibia seems to be free of dirt now, when I started the organ on Monday for the DVD showing there was wonderful, even unexpected silence from the pipes, not a single cypher nor keyboard fault. This has never happened before, an indication that we may finally be getting the organ into playable shape. We still have a few keys and the bottom F pedal that are out of adjustment. The pedal board really needs to be brought to Ottawa and the adjusting screws replaced with bolts with Nylock nuts, and properly painted and striped with the gold.
We had planned to tune the organ in the afternoon, but Murray had a tech (Gordon McLeod) from the sound system people in calibrating the audio system, made a lot of white noise, and we never had the time to tune. This was unfortunate because the organ was a bit sick sounding on Monday. We absolutely must get it into tune quickly, and keep it that way as it reflects badly on our abilities to present the DVD to the public.
Speaking of which, Bill B asked Keith Peever to play for the audience before the DVD presentation, and aside from the organ sounding poorly, Keith is a church organ plodder and IMHO should first learn how to play in TO style before appearing at the OB.This is NOT what we want as a demo of the TO.
The presenation went fine, we had a false start with the organ encoding, quickly corrected and on the second try it was fine. We had about 120 people, 100 from the Mary Cook tour and some others invited by Bill and from the Pembrooke symphony. We may do a spring concert with the orchestra at the theatre. Also Mary Cook has another 300 people on a list that want to do this tour. And the town enriched us by $150, half of which we will give to Murray.
So, this thursday, want to see the windlines finished, the ferrules papered, I want to put the reeds into the boots of the bottom 19 Stlye D and put the resonators back in place. Jack put the bottom boards back on, the wiring is completed back to the driver board, it is winded, we are a few hours shy of being able to play these pipes. Dave, can we work out some way to play these from the console, perhaps as a switch for the Morton Trumpet? We have enough driver cards but we need an replacement for the Emutek controller card.
See you on Thursday.
Salut
Ross
Last Thursday was another productive day at the OB.
Jack and I tracked down the problem with the four Bourdon notes that has stopped playing. Seems we disconnected the ground wire over the on stage regulators when we were installing the big windlines. Jack re-connected it and now the Tuba offset also works. In the process we found that the wires from the driver card to the chests had the G and Gx pipes interchanged and this was also fixed.
Gerry continued with the windlines in the main chamber. He put the short pipe from the distribution box up to the clarinet chest back in place, after shortening it by about a quarter inch. He then connected the line from this box to the tremulant just inside the dividing wall between the chambers, a bit of magic here in trying to get the pipe around some wall studs, but it is finished. He also has the final windline about ready to complete from the eight foot diapason down to the line coming thru the floor from the basement, this line had to be moved to make space for the style D pipes.
Jack wrapped the 19 lowest pipe resonators with glued on paper, this prevents the resonators from getting stuck in the ferrules soldered to the reed blocks. If they get stuck we sometimes break off the ferrule from the boot trying to remove them. Next time he will do the same with the french horn and the Morton trumpet offset.
The Tibia seems to be free of dirt now, when I started the organ on Monday for the DVD showing there was wonderful, even unexpected silence from the pipes, not a single cypher nor keyboard fault. This has never happened before, an indication that we may finally be getting the organ into playable shape. We still have a few keys and the bottom F pedal that are out of adjustment. The pedal board really needs to be brought to Ottawa and the adjusting screws replaced with bolts with Nylock nuts, and properly painted and striped with the gold.
We had planned to tune the organ in the afternoon, but Murray had a tech (Gordon McLeod) from the sound system people in calibrating the audio system, made a lot of white noise, and we never had the time to tune. This was unfortunate because the organ was a bit sick sounding on Monday. We absolutely must get it into tune quickly, and keep it that way as it reflects badly on our abilities to present the DVD to the public.
Speaking of which, Bill B asked Keith Peever to play for the audience before the DVD presentation, and aside from the organ sounding poorly, Keith is a church organ plodder and IMHO should first learn how to play in TO style before appearing at the OB.This is NOT what we want as a demo of the TO.
The presenation went fine, we had a false start with the organ encoding, quickly corrected and on the second try it was fine. We had about 120 people, 100 from the Mary Cook tour and some others invited by Bill and from the Pembrooke symphony. We may do a spring concert with the orchestra at the theatre. Also Mary Cook has another 300 people on a list that want to do this tour. And the town enriched us by $150, half of which we will give to Murray.
So, this thursday, want to see the windlines finished, the ferrules papered, I want to put the reeds into the boots of the bottom 19 Stlye D and put the resonators back in place. Jack put the bottom boards back on, the wiring is completed back to the driver board, it is winded, we are a few hours shy of being able to play these pipes. Dave, can we work out some way to play these from the console, perhaps as a switch for the Morton Trumpet? We have enough driver cards but we need an replacement for the Emutek controller card.
See you on Thursday.
Salut
Ross
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Great day at the OB
Greetings,
On Thursday the 24th three of us went up to the OB. I was joined by Gerry Doris and a new recruit Jack Loucks. Jack is a Ryerson graduate, former Nortel employee and currently on long term unemployment.
We tackled two problems starting with a number of wind lines that were removed to make way for the Style D trumpet chest. Gerry and Jack re-installed a 6 inch metal line from under the Warren string chest up to the distribution box that feeds the Warren Fr. Hn. and Clarinet. This rather simple task seemed to take forever, ducts were marginally too long and one pipe under the string chest was stuck so tight in the duct sealant that eventually we had to use a heat gun to soften the glue. But it is now completed. Then they started to put in the feed for the Style D. A ventil valve was installed at the chest end, and a pipe run across the floor and down thru a new hole. With two more elbows, a T and 2 feet of pipe the chest will be winded.
On Thursday the 10th Jack and I had been at the theatre, he removed the three chest bottoms from the new Style D chest and brought them to Ottawa where he installed DB connectors and made the cable to the Emutek driver board. All this is now at the theatre ready to install once we blow out the new windline. That day I started installing the newly cleaned shallots and reeds in that rank, the upper three octaves are completed. The reeds will soon be installed in the bottom 19 which have removeable resonators and the bottom of these resonators will have to be wrapped in glued on paper to keep the resonators from sticking themselves into the ferrules. We should also do this with the 12 offset pipes for the Morton trumpet and the bottom octave of the Warren Fr. Hn.
This leaves us with replacing two windlines in the main chamber, one to the tremulant for the FR. Hn. and Clarinet, which has never been finished, and re-routing the windline to the Warren Open Diapason 8 ft offset on the back wall upper deck. Then we can send the remaining pipe and fitting to the containers.
Second problem was dead notes and cyphers throughout the organ. We had inadvertently pulled a lot of pipes with cyphers when the problem was really sticking keys. I reseated all the pipes, the 8ft C in the trumpet and about 6 pipes in the string chest that do have cyphers. The Tibia chest that I converted from Morton magnets to Reisner's last year had a lot of cyphers which are easily corrected in about 10 seconds each just by unscrewing the cap and flicking out the tiny piece of dirt. Why Morton never thought of this idea is curious, it is the only weakness in the Carlsted chest design. We will likely have some of this problem in the style D chest but this chest also has the external magnet design. Wish we had about $600 per chest to convert the entire organ to Reisners. I played the Tibia chest up and down the keyboard about 30 times and there are no more cyphers and no dead notes. A first for that rank. And yes Brian, there is a missing anchor in one of the bottom boards but it does not leak so we will leave it like that until the bottom has to come off for some reason. The massive leak between this board and the chest has disappeared as well, heavy packing leather gaskets seem to have solved that one.
While this was going on Jack took the write up for showing the DVD and went thru the proceedure. He had a few questions but managed to get the DVD to show and the organ to play. Aside from a few sticking keys the console functions well, and the R/P plays OK. Jack has modified the writeup. He also knows how to find cyphers and correct them when possible or pull the pipe.
Just before we left I tried to play the 16ft Bourdons from the pedals and found two problems, they are sadly out of regulation, possibly the slide valves were moved by Brian when he was searching for missing tools dropped from above, and also the top four notes fail to play, GX thru B. I checked the connectors under the chest, and the ground wires and they seem to be OK. Jack and I will fix this next week. I will bring some known good replacement Morton magnets just in case we have to replace them. At least this chest has short sectional bottoms for easy access.
We have a tour coming on October 5th, morning or afternoon has yet to be decided. There will be 100 plus persons attending. This is a bus tour which is being hosted by the Town of Renfrew. We will receive a donation from the Town council in lieu of charging admission. This is a chance to show off both the organ and the DVD. Jack and I plan to tune the organ next Thursday afternoon.
From this point on I would like to do two things. First, there is still some maintenance work to do, dead notes, cleaning the chambers, etc. There are several ranks of the old Warren strings that are starting to bend over under their own weight. There is a rack board but the pipes have never been properly tied to it. Secondly I want to try and finish the two Warren chests in the top of the solo chamber, for the Vox and Concert Flute, we need to install about half the magnet valves and complete the installation of the bottom boards. Then we can find out whether all our labors over the years rebuilding those wooden valves will pay off. I have some reservations about our work which can only be dispelled with an on site test.
More as work progresses.
Salut
Ross
On Thursday the 24th three of us went up to the OB. I was joined by Gerry Doris and a new recruit Jack Loucks. Jack is a Ryerson graduate, former Nortel employee and currently on long term unemployment.
We tackled two problems starting with a number of wind lines that were removed to make way for the Style D trumpet chest. Gerry and Jack re-installed a 6 inch metal line from under the Warren string chest up to the distribution box that feeds the Warren Fr. Hn. and Clarinet. This rather simple task seemed to take forever, ducts were marginally too long and one pipe under the string chest was stuck so tight in the duct sealant that eventually we had to use a heat gun to soften the glue. But it is now completed. Then they started to put in the feed for the Style D. A ventil valve was installed at the chest end, and a pipe run across the floor and down thru a new hole. With two more elbows, a T and 2 feet of pipe the chest will be winded.
On Thursday the 10th Jack and I had been at the theatre, he removed the three chest bottoms from the new Style D chest and brought them to Ottawa where he installed DB connectors and made the cable to the Emutek driver board. All this is now at the theatre ready to install once we blow out the new windline. That day I started installing the newly cleaned shallots and reeds in that rank, the upper three octaves are completed. The reeds will soon be installed in the bottom 19 which have removeable resonators and the bottom of these resonators will have to be wrapped in glued on paper to keep the resonators from sticking themselves into the ferrules. We should also do this with the 12 offset pipes for the Morton trumpet and the bottom octave of the Warren Fr. Hn.
This leaves us with replacing two windlines in the main chamber, one to the tremulant for the FR. Hn. and Clarinet, which has never been finished, and re-routing the windline to the Warren Open Diapason 8 ft offset on the back wall upper deck. Then we can send the remaining pipe and fitting to the containers.
Second problem was dead notes and cyphers throughout the organ. We had inadvertently pulled a lot of pipes with cyphers when the problem was really sticking keys. I reseated all the pipes, the 8ft C in the trumpet and about 6 pipes in the string chest that do have cyphers. The Tibia chest that I converted from Morton magnets to Reisner's last year had a lot of cyphers which are easily corrected in about 10 seconds each just by unscrewing the cap and flicking out the tiny piece of dirt. Why Morton never thought of this idea is curious, it is the only weakness in the Carlsted chest design. We will likely have some of this problem in the style D chest but this chest also has the external magnet design. Wish we had about $600 per chest to convert the entire organ to Reisners. I played the Tibia chest up and down the keyboard about 30 times and there are no more cyphers and no dead notes. A first for that rank. And yes Brian, there is a missing anchor in one of the bottom boards but it does not leak so we will leave it like that until the bottom has to come off for some reason. The massive leak between this board and the chest has disappeared as well, heavy packing leather gaskets seem to have solved that one.
While this was going on Jack took the write up for showing the DVD and went thru the proceedure. He had a few questions but managed to get the DVD to show and the organ to play. Aside from a few sticking keys the console functions well, and the R/P plays OK. Jack has modified the writeup. He also knows how to find cyphers and correct them when possible or pull the pipe.
Just before we left I tried to play the 16ft Bourdons from the pedals and found two problems, they are sadly out of regulation, possibly the slide valves were moved by Brian when he was searching for missing tools dropped from above, and also the top four notes fail to play, GX thru B. I checked the connectors under the chest, and the ground wires and they seem to be OK. Jack and I will fix this next week. I will bring some known good replacement Morton magnets just in case we have to replace them. At least this chest has short sectional bottoms for easy access.
We have a tour coming on October 5th, morning or afternoon has yet to be decided. There will be 100 plus persons attending. This is a bus tour which is being hosted by the Town of Renfrew. We will receive a donation from the Town council in lieu of charging admission. This is a chance to show off both the organ and the DVD. Jack and I plan to tune the organ next Thursday afternoon.
From this point on I would like to do two things. First, there is still some maintenance work to do, dead notes, cleaning the chambers, etc. There are several ranks of the old Warren strings that are starting to bend over under their own weight. There is a rack board but the pipes have never been properly tied to it. Secondly I want to try and finish the two Warren chests in the top of the solo chamber, for the Vox and Concert Flute, we need to install about half the magnet valves and complete the installation of the bottom boards. Then we can find out whether all our labors over the years rebuilding those wooden valves will pay off. I have some reservations about our work which can only be dispelled with an on site test.
More as work progresses.
Salut
Ross
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