What our organ needs to bring it back to its full glory:
Our building’s organ had a thorough diagnoses recently by RIchard Pelland of Pelland Organ Company and his assistant Eric, a professional church organist, seen in the video above. There are problems and most of them seem to stem from the 1924-25 installation of this 1914 organ that was originally built for a different building. Several pipes are broken and it would be less expensive to replace than to repair. The reason these pipes are broken is because they were mitered, and leaning at right angles. There is room to replace with new straight pipes that go all the way up. Dick took all the measurements. New zinc can replace the cardboard air tubes. The cardboard is finally failing after 100 yrs and Jon has crawled up twice now to repair with duck tape, once mid-ritual.
Pelland’s recommendations are:
- Enlarge the panel in the kitchen and add a tuning bench to allow access to all the pipes.
- Replace the broken Dulciana pipes 1-12 in laquered zinc per scale
- Replace the broken Aeoline pipes 1-12 in laquered zinc per scale
- Replace the tremolo box
- Replace cardboard wind lines with galvanized pipes
- Replace manual key nuts on both.
- Full tuning
- The cost of these repairs would be in the range of $15,000-=20,000.