Anatomy of a WurliTzer Theatre Pipe Organ
CONSOLE - HORSESHOE
This is looking at the top side of the horseshoe.
At the bottom left the four new holes for the tubing to the preset pneumatics for the
extra two stop tabs at this end of the stop rail. The original tubing can be seen. It connects the
preset pneumatics to the preset action box through the timber manifold that screws to the top of the
action box.
Drilling these holes down to connect to the holes under the pneumatics was always going to
be interesting. It became a lot more interesting when the long drill bit broke off 100mm
inside the hole. To extract the remainder of the bit I drilled extra holes down from the top surface
to the bit which enabled, with a little fiddling, the bit to be levered and pushed back out of the hole.
Of course this left a few unwanted holes. A channel was routed into the top of the horseshoe which took out
all the extra holes and the wanted hole to allow a new piece of wood to be inserted to repair the problem.
A new hole was then drilled where it was intended to be, with a new drill bit. The insert is just visible
at the top right of the photo.
Here the original black paint has been sanded off the top of the horseshoe. This paint would not take the
usual hot glue so the pneumatics needed to be atached with burnt shellac instead. Here the positions for
the preset pneumatics are all covered with masking tape so the new paint will not be where it will be a
problem.
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