Repairing Deleika 20-Key Organ
By Mike Knudsen
Two years ago at the Union IL swap meet I purchased a used 20-note Deleika monkey/grinder organ, the style that should go on a small cart. It's in fine-looking shape and beautifully built inside, looking almost new inside and out. I have a few rolls and have Hal O'Rourke's latest catalog of music so I can order some more.
However, the organ has two related problems. First, the bellows reservoir is inadequate -- you have to crank at a pretty fast tempo to avoid sound gaps as the feeder goes through top and bottom dead center. As a musician I feel that some of the pieces on my rolls really should be played slower -- and my arms get tired!
(I was highly impressed at the Chicago MBSI meeting last August, with the Le Ludion organ and the French couple who played it. They could pause for a long fermata and the pipes just kept on singing.)
[ Philippe & Eve Crasse of Le Ludion are now members of MMD. -- Robbie ]
Question 1: Are my bellows leaking, and if so, do I have to rebuild them or can I try to delay the inevitable by applying a coat of Neatsfoot oil to the white leather, or would diluted rubber cement be better (ugh)? This organ can't be more than a few years old, and I'm surprised that the bellows leather should be porous already. I should probably shellac the top board and maybe check the flap valves inside too.
Question 2: There's no "melody" and "accompaniment" division, but the scale divides into 9 (double) Dutch Bourdons for the top notes, nicely displayed, and 9 single Bourdons hidden under the case. The latter are voiced too loud for the solo pipes, and a bit too "tubby" also. Besides, they use far too much of the limited air supply -- one good "hoot" chord drains the reservoir.
So I'd like to throttle them back somehow -- put a constriction on the plastic tubes that feed each accompaniment pipe from the valve chest, or maybe limit the travel of their valves (easy in theory, but hard to get to). As a pipe organ nut, my ideal solution would be to replace them with narrower-scaled Rohrflotes, but that's a tad extreme. :-)
Any means of throttling these Bourdons would correct the instrument's tonal balance and help the bellows problems as well. I rebuilt my Weber Duo-Art grand 20 years ago, so I can probably handle whatever solutions I decide upon. Thanks in advance for any advice.
Mike Knudsen
PS: The Union show is June 13-15 this year. Hope to see you there.
PPS: I have another posting coming on my basket-case miniature 33-key book-driven pierement. That will be quite a project!
[ I tried throttling the short air-calliope pipes to tame the shrieking,
[ but it didn't work well. Even after changing the "cut-up" (the big
[ gap between the base and the resonator), it still didn't sound very
[ good. I didn't try making a narrower wind gap, which maybe would
[ help. I'll be very interested in following your project, Mike.
[ Let us know what happens. -- Robbie |
(Message sent Mon 24 Mar 1997, 19:45:05 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.) |
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