Introduction
By Bob and Sonja Lemon
[ Editor's note:
[
[ How do you locate a pipe organ owner in an unfamiliar city? It's
[ easy: call the player piano repair guys listed in the city
[ telephone book. The first response was Sonja Lemon, and she had
[ the answer: "Sure, I know who that is, his wife was a school chum
[ of mine!" Then I learned about the 196-foot sternwheeler steamboat
[ which this collector was building!
[
[ Robbie Rhodes
Robbie, You have a very good memory! To update you since 1982 -- Hal Wilmunder's boat, the "Elizabeth Louise", is now operating commercially on the Sacramento River as an excursion boat, powered by a steam engine from a circa WW-II Victory Ship, and driving a true paddle wheel. The calliope you saw is installed on the boat.
Now here's a little more information about us.
We acquired our first player piano in 1964 through an acquaintance of Hal and Betty Wilmunder. It is a 1919 Underwood & Sons upright player piano/pipe organ (102 pipes with a 1/2 hp Spencer turbine blower, and a belt-driven DC power supply). It appears to have been custom-built for a mortuary in Woodland, Calif. The pipes are now installed in a separate chamber above the piano. From what we can surmise, the whole package was assembled in 1921. Electrical contacts have been added to the piano action and a small control box for the organ stops sits on the music desk. There is also an added mute rail installed in the piano. Of course, this needed rebuilding, and that was the beginning.
Since then friends would ask us, "If we buy a player, will you rebuild it?" "Sure!" We've had the opportunity to work on many fine musical instruments and non-instruments -- the most interesting was a portable hand-powered fog-horn! We have done total restorations on many pumper and reproducing pianos. We have also restored reed organs and various pipe organ components. We have been full time rebuilders since 1979. We are also fully equipped to do custom woodworking and metal working. We reproduce some metal parts for Seeburgs. We have been members of Amica since 1972.
We look forward to exchanging knowledge with this group.
Bob & Sonja Lemon, Sacramento, California
rslemon@pacbell.net |
(Message sent Sun 15 Dec 1996, 07:00:06 GMT, from time zone GMT-0800.) |
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