I am sure that most everyone who is interested in building a Wurlitzer
105 band organ from scratch knows that Bill Black has castings of the
105 crankshaft available (MMD 10/24/01).  For those who perhaps do not
know, let me update the archive with my experience.

I just received one and was very pleased with the quality.  The casting
is very fine grain cast iron, very clean without any defects of any
type.  So often it is hard to get castings of good quality when doing
small lots and get quality and low cost at the same time.

I had mine machined by the machine shop that Bill had used since they
had made fixtures for the setup and machining of the various offsets
in the shaft for this specific crankshaft.  When I looked at others who
could do the crankshaft machine work what I found was that, although
many machine shops specialize in automotive machine work including
turning crankshafts, they really are in the business of modifying or
repairing existing cranks that already have centers located and
machined for setting up in the lathe.  Starting with a raw casting
adds a lot of setup time and effort that many of these places are not
equipped or interested in doing at a price that I was willing to pay.

For those who might be interested the machine shop I used was:

  Bob Ryesky
  R&R Machine Shop
  426 A Street Rear
  Carlisle, PA 17013
  tel.: 1-717-243-0121

Bob is a very nice guy and does outstanding work and I thought the
price was very good.  I understand he does quite a bit of other
mechanical music related machine work as well.

Also, I would be interested in sharing general war stories, tips, ideas,
etc., with anyone in the process or thinking about building the 105.

Bob Humes