Jim Crank wrote about the preferred Kilgen organ chest system.
I am here in St. Louis where they were built. They were known as
a manufacturer of cheaply made organs. There are many, many of them
here. I have not had the occasion to rebuild one, but I do have a
7-rank Theater Kilgen that I will redo someday.
The local organ techs totally despise the Kilgen chest. The drawbacks
seem to include the fact that the valves never seem to line up after
working on them, so they cipher. The new pouch and wire coming out of
it must be absolutely perfectly aligned or the valve is cocked to one
side. This also causes ciphers.
One problem I have encountered in my working on church organs is the
fact that you can't take out a pouch board and take it to the shop for
work. You must take the whole bottom board, leaving the organ chest
open. You must remove all the wires to remove it from the organ
chamber for work. On offset chests you must remove all pipes and
totally dismantle the chest walls to work on the pouch. Many of the
local techs just replace the system with new direct electric solenoids
and say to heck with it.
D. L. Bullock Piano World St. Louis
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