Robbie's comment in the 010120 MMD about "How many instruments, total,
have been completed and are performing?" prompted me to write about my
experiences with the John Smith organ.

My previous comments on this project were covered in a posting to the
MMD on 1999.05.11 to which refer.  I had just received the plans and
started on the "dream" -- see below.  The link on that page has changed
but you are directed to the new site.  What is left out is my rather
scathing comments about the plans in general.

First a word about "plans."  Plans to make anything are like a dream.
I see the ad for them, I order and receive the merchandise and then
I sit for long hours and "dream" of what the finished project will look
or sound like.

I am not alone.  Most of the success of vendors of plans lies in the
fact that the vast majority of people who buy their plans never bother
to even start building them.  I ordered a set of plans and took
pictures of the progress and sent them to the designer.  After a while,
I realized by his comments that I was actually the first person to
build one of his machines!  The above comments could certainly be
applied to the subject at hand.

None of the pictures or comments about the John Smith organ are
accessible from my home page, but over the last months I have received
quite a number of inquiries from people about the organ; it seems that
the search engines can find everything!

Many had already bought the plans and had gotten bogged down or had
given up in disgust.  One person called the plans a "fraud", saying
that they were nothing more than a prototype that the author was having
him pay to develop.

The organ can be built according to the plans.  If you want it to
WORK, then you are going to have to make adjustments, a lot of them.
I suspect that the organ was built, taken to a rally and people were
impressed and wanted to build one.  THEN the plans were drawn up.  They
were certainly never checked for accuracy before they were unleashed on
the public, nor was a working instrument built using the dimensions
specified in the printed material.

There is a video that comes with the plans.  It is well done in that
it shows a method of covering bellows and constructing pipes.  The only
problem comes when you realize that the organs being built in the video
are NOT the organ you have plans for!

Pipe construction, the heart _and_ soul of any organ, is done in a manner
never seen by many people before.  The author was trying to simplify as
much as possible a rather complex technique.  The specified wood is
balsa -- yep, that stuff we used to make model airplanes out of (some
of us still do).

At some point, the designer realized that a sharp lip could not be
obtained with the soft wood, so thin walnut strips were called for to
be added to the front of the languid, the upper lip and the pipe cap.
Since the wood is so very porous, you must seal the inside and outside
of the pipes with glue.  It is far easier to use a harder wood to begin
with.  Pipe stoppers are covered with weather stripping and
"lubricated" with talc.

Activating a musical instrument using holes in the roll as valves is
certainly not a new concept.  Many toys such as the Rolmonica and
others used this principle.  Blowing a mechanical instrument with your
mouth is totally different than blowing it with bellows, for the mouth
is able to compensate if certain notes do not sound and you can vary
the pressure at will.  A set of feeders and reservoir possesses no such
intelligence.  Since large pipes require a larger volume of wind, the
Smith organ uses larger tracker bar holes for the lowest pipes and as
originally "planned" used larger holes in the paper roll as well.  That
changed later on down the line -- again, something that you are not
told about until after it is too late.

The windway in the pipe, the gap between the languid and cap, is
determined by cardboard cut from a "cereal carton" -- quote from the
plans.  How thick is that?  Well, it depends on which brand of cereal
you like and the results will vary accordingly.

There are plans for a solenoid operated punch, available at extra cost,
which produces a neat and functional item.  The only problem comes
when you build the indexing plate for the punch and find out that the
hole spacing on the punch is different than the tracker bar spacing on
the organ!  Fortunately I caught this in time, or my efforts at making
rolls would have produced fire wood.

I have built several of the organs and modified them extensively.  If
you build according to the plans, the crankshaft bangs into the pressure
box and you have to move the whole thing forward.  Weather stripping is
used for gaskets and very soon compresses to where it is useless.  When
you try to replace it, the adhesive from the old material hinders
installation of a leather gasket, which is what should have been used
in the first place.

Plans for a case are non-existent, except those portions that actually
support something.  Even then, the dimensions are not correct.  Pipes
have to be mitered to fit, but nowhere in the plans are the angles or
lengths given.  You are on your own, and you can probably plan on
re-making the bass pipes until you get the miter dimensions correct.

How many are there out there?  Well, I know of three in the United
States that were built by the original buyers of the plans.  Two more
people are in the process of building theirs with help from me and
others who have trudged the long trail.  I understand that a large
number of them are up and running across the pond.

Music for the organs is available as paper masters (printed on computer
fan-fold paper) from Hal O'Rourke, who is the United States agent for
Melvyn Wright.  The arrangements are delightful and show the true genius
of Melvyn, who can squeeze more music out of 20 notes than anyone I
know.  Several people have ordered the masters and sent them to me for
punching.

There is a commercial firm that builds organs using the Smith
principle.  I know of a person who has one and he has me punch his
music for him.  He is very satisfied with his instrument.

There are plans and then there are "Plans".  One set I bought clearly
states that the plans are NOT plans but are "a description of what I
have built".  I certainly appreciated the honesty of that statement,
and the author has spent hours on the Internet helping me with the
project.  John Smith, at last check, is not on the Internet, so you
are on your own.

If you want the whole story with pictures, email me and I will give you
the URL for my experiences with the project.

If you complete one, it sounds very good, as many people found out who
attended a recent rally in St. Louis where a Smith organ performed.
The rolls on that instrument were arranged by Melvyn Wright and
perforated by me, but the owner is now perforating his own.  I made up
a roll label for the titles and used a name coined by a man who tried
THREE times to build the organ.  He calls it the "Busker Bomb", so I
named my roll label after his expression: "Bomb Rolls".  He eventually
sent me his plans and I built him an organ.

If the plans have been revised, corrected and changed to such an extent
that the whole project is not an experiment, then I would like to know
about it.  If not -- well, only you know if you are capable of building
a dream that, in reality, is a nightmare!

Ed Gaida