Pipe organ disassembly

[organforumadmin]

Hi!


The subject of pipe organ disassembly has come up in the site statistics and this is clearly a useful topic for us to cover here as an encouragement, hopefully, for people to take on organ moving and preservation projects.


There are certain tips that are usefully passed on and it would be great if members could contribute appropriately to this thread . . .


Best wishes


Forum Admin

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

Get the pipes out and packed first - in decent boxes.  Take plenty of pictures of everything - especially things like conveyancing runs - a few labels won't come amiss either - and take your time - it's too easy to rush and cause unnecessary damage.

Every Blessing

Tony

[David Pinnegar]

Hi!

The first thing, as Tony says, is getting the pipes out and ideally into trays. But there are two aspects
1. If you're an amateur, and possibly with amateur help in reassembly, do something in a terribly amateur way which works - label each pipe by row and by number from the left. Have a system to this and stick to it. Inscribe the metal with a point (ouch - I can hear the pros raising eyebrows at this) or use a soft pencil but make sure the marking does not come off nor is likely to rub off in the course of moving.
2. When you put the pipes down, don't put them upright on their pointed ends for you'll close up the air holes and need revoiceing, nor put them down around their mouths - make sure that the metal is not bent in that area or you'll put them off speech.

Best wishes

David P

[revtonynewnham]

Hi David

In my admittedly limited experience most pipes are already marked with rank & note name by the pipe maker - just keep the pipes from each ranks together.  The only fly in the ointment is if pipes have been rescaled or re-purposed - the organ formerly in Rye Baptist Church had a stopped flute on the Great that was marked Gt Open - the pipes had been cut down and fitted with cork stoppers, and the marking bore no resemblance to the new pitch!  I'd be reluctant to use a scriber or similar to mark pipes - the metal is very soft - too much risk of damage.

Every Blessing

Tony

[David Pinnegar]

In my admittedly limited experience most pipes are already marked with rank & note name by the pipe maker - just keep the pipes from each ranks together.  The only fly in the ointment is if pipes have been rescaled or re-purposed - the organ formerly in Rye Baptist Church had a stopped flute on the Great that was marked Gt Open - the pipes had been cut down and fitted with cork stoppers, and the marking bore no resemblance to the new pitch!  I'd be reluctant to use a scriber or similar to mark pipes - the metal is very soft - too much risk of damage.

Dear Tony

Yes - I agree with you - but I did qualify my posting with the words "amateur" - the implication of which means working by a foolproof system by which nothing can go wrong  :) Obviously one needs to scribe pipes legibly but avoiding undue incision so that they aren't dented. Whilst handling pipes one must avoid scribing or handling anywhere near the speaking part, the mouth.

The problem with pipes is that their arrangement on the pipechest is not always obvious, and confusion is more than possible. If one is handling an amateur team, the person placing the pipe onto the chest can call out for pipe G23 on the basis of the 23rd pipe along in the 7th row back and there's no question about which that pipe is. The position of Harmonic Flute CC# is rather more obscure.

Another tip is to only replace the pipes when on wind - in other words with the stop drawn and the expected note being played. This ensures that dust is blown out of the windway and that as one lowers the pipe through the pipe rack the sound of the jet of wind exciting the pipe guides one's motion down onto the windchest, avoiding damage to the foot of the pipe and allowing any defect of speech to be given attention to. It's at this stage where assistance from a professional pipe voicer if on hand is so valuable and can be the difference between a mediocre and a successful organ rescue and rebuild.

One must always expect defects and it's so frustrating when people who want to be naysayers refer to an instrument as rubbish for reason of one excuse or other which is an exception within the instrument rather than the rule and often a minor detail of the instrument that can be fixed easily, with the right expertise.

I have been made aware privately that one instrument currently receiving the unpleasantness of a battle between what appears to be an obscure set of opposing interests is caused by a set of  failures are down to the of gallery Trumpet stop transistor switches. In this instance there are calls for the whole instrument to be replaced only on account of some dodgy underspecified transistors and appropriate protection diodes. One problem in general rather than this particular case specifically is that pipe organ builders have used components requiring electronic engineering in which they have not been trained, or an electronic engineering consultant has been engaged without real understanding of their field or the requirements of the application. Of course a gallery trumpet will have required long cables and signalling at a distance - so any failure associated with this particular stop will not necessarily be a sign of a general failure of the main systems within the instrument. It might even be only the failure of a smoothing capacitor on the power supply.

Of course this departs from organ disassembly - but the decision for anyone to rescue an instrument must depend upon the liklihood of success of rebuilding. That is dependant on having appropriate skills and expertise on hand applicable to the technicalities involved, despite much of the process being capable of being executed by the exercise of common sense, especially with a purely mechanical action.

At the end of the day, the success of a dismantling for relocation depends on the success of the final rebuild and that depends upon mechanical labelling and photographs of everything.

Even in the dismantling of an electronic instrument, the same applies. When a set of circuit boards have been simply chopped out of a cable loom, re-identifying what went where, in terms particularly of signals and power supplies, is a puzzle requiring a science degree rather than merely the common sense of mechanical attachment if the relevant labelling was not done in the first place.

However amateur the labelling, more is always better than less.

Best wishes

David P

[Holditch]

Just make sure the labels are easily removable.

I had a devil of a job removing the ones from my Holditch rank; it took a great deal of label off (nice smelling orange aerosol!) to completely remove the residue from the sticky label. Perhaps masking tape is a good solution?

Best Regards
Marc

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

Masking tape is OK if the rebuild is to be fairly soon - but it does dry a=out, and depending on brand, will either harden and fall off, or still leave a sticky mess!  (I use marking tape for temporary labels of audio mixer channels - on my kit, which doesn't get used very often, it makes a mess if left in situ for more than a couple of months).

Every Blessing

Tony

[Janner]

..........

Even in the dismantling of an electronic instrument, the same applies. When a set of circuit boards have been simply chopped out of a cable loom, re-identifying what went where, in terms particularly of signals and power supplies, is a puzzle requiring a science degree rather than merely the common sense of mechanical attachment if the relevant labelling was not done in the first place.

However amateur the labelling, more is always better than less.
.............

Best wishes

David P

To any untrained amateur contemplating dismantling an organ containing electronics, may I also suggest giving anti-static protection more than a passing thought. Professional electronics engineers and technicians do; they have learnt by experience.

For pluggable circuit boards, good anti-static bags, obtainable from electronics component suppliers, are well worthwhile for storage and transport. Not only may that board be expensive to replace, but identifying the fault may be difficult, and if it's in an old model of something a replacement may prove hard to find.

Larger assemblies attached to wiring looms may be more difficult to protect, but as a general rule with electronic components such as ICs or transistors, don't touch them, or the metallic parts of conductors connected to them, if it can possibly be avoided. If it can't be avoided, such as when wiring or fitting them, then anti-static wrist straps are available.

[KB7DQH]

My electronics teacher would fabricate his own anti-static wrist straps by soldering a sufficiently long piece of stranded hookup wire to a penny, and secure that to his wrist with a loop of elastic, and an alligator clip was then fixed to the other end and grounded appropriately ;) 

Eric
KB7DQH

[Janner]

:)

There are various solutions, some more sophisticated than others, depending on the situation in which you are working.

A word of caution though. Don't forget you are effectively connecting to earth one part of your body, and may be fiddling around in a partially dismantled electrical appliance with another. If the object you are working on has a mains power transformer normally connected to the mains supply, and by some chance a switch has been left on, and you just happen to accidentally touch a terminal which should have been shielded..................

That is why, in some (industrial) situations, anti-static straps are used with leads which have a 2 Megohm resistor in each end. They will still discharge the static, but limit the current if the user does happen to touch something live.

Unlikely in an organ move I know, but there is no harm in being aware. When I put on that wrist band I always remind myself that I am strapping on an electrical conductor. It's surprising how often it makes me recheck that the object I am working on is unplugged / disconnected.  :)