The Wurlitzer Style 155 "Monster"
By Bill Black
Hi All. Since my good friend Matt Caulfield invites me to write, here's some additional information on the 3 known examples of the Style 155 organ. [ Gosh, Bill, write us _anytime_ ! -- Robbie ]
My 155 was located in a skating rink, and it has no original case, just a chassis, since it was built into the wall. The playing mechanism is original, including all the pipework, 100-key spool box, pumps, drums etc. It still plays the 100-key original music rolls -- 10 holes per inch, wooden tracker bar -- of which there are about 17 rolls known to exist. Some rolls contain a single song and some have two songs. They're on wooden spools about the same diameter as an 88 note piano roll. I never measured them, but I think that they are not speed compensated. The original music is still playable if you "ride the tracker bar" while playing them, as most are on the old red paper which isn't known for its stability!
The organ can also play a 165 roll. Mike Kitner fabricated a "coupler" to allow an external electric 165 spool box to be used to play the organ, which is mounted on the side of the organ. This was done by tubing into the tracker bar tubing with a "Tee" to hook up to the "coupler" and the 165 spool box. So, the organ can play either roll without any alteration to the organ other than some tubing. To play the original music, I block off the 165 tracker bar with the music roll, or block off the 100-key bar to play the 165 music.
The second Style 155 is located at the Kit Carson County Carousel in Burlington, Colorado. Years ago it was converted to play 165 rolls and some of the unused pipework was discarded, along with the original spool box. It currently plays 165 music. I don't know if the cabinet is original or not, but it is original in appearance.
The third Style 155 belongs to Gordon Forcier. At one time it was converted to play Wurlitzer 150 rolls, and later converted again to play BAB rolls (not 100% sure about the BAB rolls). This machine was also missing some pipework and the spool box.
One of the big differences between the 155 and the Style 165 organ, other than the greater amount of keys and pipes, is in the melody section. The 165 uses register controls to turn ranks of pipes on and off while the 155 has no register controls; instead it has manual draw stops. The 155 has a separate 18-note piccolo section on the tracker bar which allows this rank to play independently from the melody section. So, the piccolo section is not forced to play along with the melody section. "Treasures of Mechanical Music", by Art Reblitz and Dave Bowers, gives detailed information on tracker scales.
I have only seen one Style 160 "Mammoth" organ, years ago. It was larger than the Style 155 machine, unrestored, no music, no spool box and missing some pipes. Marty Roenigk has one of these machines. I don't know if this is the same one I looked at or not. Two of these are thought to survive. The "Mammoth" organ had a 122-key tracker bar. As far as I know, no music rolls for this machine exist. The information on the scale it played is taken from an original Wurlitzer scale stick. (See the Reblitz & Bowers book.)
This information is to the best of my recollection, which at my age is sometimes "not so hot", so any corrections are appreciated. Happy Holidays to all!!!
Bill Black
CARROUSEL MUSIC
P.S. I followed the discussion on tuning a 150 organ with interest. I have a copy of an operators manual which came with a Wurlitzer organ when sold by the factory. It describes a procedure for tuning the 150 organ, only one page of information. It doesn't have much to do with the technical discussion on the Digest, but if there is any interest in seeing it, I'll post it.
[ Please share it with us, Bill. I'm eager to learn if Wurlitzer
[ used a "Just Tuning" method. -- Robbie |
(Message sent Sat 21 Dec 1996, 23:33:23 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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