Regarding Richard Schneider's good question:

> My first question is, where did the pressure of 8" come from?  If
> this is something that's going to be used in a house, I would think
> that substantially lower pressure would be more than sufficient.
> Nowadays, we build pipe organs for churches with not much more than
> 3" of wind!

In my opinion, if one is building a replica (Wurlitzer 105) with
replica Wurlitzer pipes, one should use the wind pressure specified
by Wurlitzer.  The Wurlitzer design pipes will not speak with much
lower wind pressures.  If one is designing an organ from scratch the
options are open.

In the history of organ design, the earliest organs used wind of
2" to 4".  The oldest playable organ (the Continuum in the chapel at
Fredriksborg Castle in Denmark) uses 2".  The 18th century tracker
organs of Silbermann and Snetzler use 3".  The use of low pressure has
been continued through the present in the German and Dutch schools of
organ design.

One of the early reasons for the use of low wind pressure was that
power was supplied by water motors fed by public water supplies.
Churches paid no water tax.

With the introduction of electric motors to supply power for blowers,
organ builders experimented with increased pressures.  In the late 19th
and early 20th centuries, pressures from 10" to as high as 30" were
used, especially in the US and France.  The second half of the 20th
century saw a return to lower pressures, primarily because these
designs sound much better.

I believe it is quite proper and expected to design and construct
organs today with wind pressures of 2" to 4".

Band organs and fairground organs, however, have a whole different
history.  For a fixed number of pipes more pressure means louder, thus
attracting crowds from a greater distance.  The showmen were interested
in creating a spectacle and raking in the cash.  The loud organs draw
them in.

Band organs (the Wurlitzer 105 included) are not subtle, and that's
their charm.  I wouldn't go to all the trouble to build a 105 replica
and wimp out on the wind pressure.  To paraphrase Conan O'Brian --
that would be wrong.

Bill Finch