Repairing Deleika 20-key Organ
By Mike Knudsen
Many thanks to the several private and public responders to my 20-note Deleika organ queries. The overwhelming consensus is that I have a leak in my bellows or chest, probably a cracked end grain or cloth slipped off a board end, and I must find and fix that before anything else.
I timed it last night and the reservoir bellows takes only three seconds to collapse completely after being filled, once I stop cranking with no notes sounding. I'd expect ten seconds or more would be normal, and one person said to look for a whole minute! It's time to remove the bellows and see...
There are screws for adjusting the bleeds for best repetition, but no adjustments I can see to regulate the flow to each pipe. I've been thinking of reasonably neat ways to retrofit such adjustments.
Ingmar Krause confirmed my suspicion that Deleika under-engineered the wind supply (and also made sure I can't sell this organ to anyone on the MMD List :-) I already tried once, at the MBSI convention in Chicago, to sell this organ to buy a bigger one -- preferably 31 notes with a register or two. (Having studied the organ and Bach, I don't consider it an _organ_ if it doesn't have stops :-)
I'd heard that Deleika once worked for Raffin and copied his designs. But I guess he had to make his own mistakes?
Anyway, I still enjoy the organ and usually crank through an Elvis Presley tune or two every day (amazing what you can get cut onto a roll). I bought it used, so I have no idea how it played when new, although I think the wind supply and melody pipes were a tad better when I first got it.
Thanks again,
Mike Knudsen |
(Message sent Wed 26 Mar 1997, 17:09:13 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.) |
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