I'm working on an old tracker action pipe organ from about 1870.
The pine and chestnut wood has become very dry and soft and weighs
almost nothing, although everything is intact -- no dry rot or mould.
It all looks good.

The wood is becoming quite brittle and fragile due to it's extreme
dryness and lack of any original finish.  Even the act of washing it
to remove dirt is enough to cause some surface wood fibres to rub off.
A person's fingernails can easily leave marks in the wood, it's so dry.

In the past we've varnished old woodwork to seal the wood and firm up
the surface, with excellent results, but I don't know if that would
make others cringe.  I know some historic buried or sunken wooden ships
have been stabilized by soaking them in PEG but that would not be a
solution for a working musical instrument.

Any other suggestions on what the best route would be to protect the
woodwork from further damage?  We want to restore this instrument to
the best working level we can since it's a very rare, almost fully
intact, example of a Canadian built instrument of it's time.

How much of the oxidized patina of it's age should be left intact or
sealed in?  The dirt is easy to remove but I don't want to disturb the
stains and patina of it's aging since that would remove the idea that
it's circa 140 years old.

The outside of the casework was stained and finished when new and at
some time in the extremely distant past somebody gave the outside a
coat of orange shellac.  Beyond that nothing had been done to protect
the woodwork inside.  Unlike a circus merry-go-round, painting the
whole thing up would not be appropriate or historically accurate,
although we intend to restore the original wild stenciling patterns
to the casework pipes.

The organ was in continuous use up until 30 years ago when it's
original bellows leather finally sprang a leak, then it sat unwanted
till now.  No player action but you do have to hand pump it.  Any
thoughts, suggestions?

Nelson Denton