3/25 Kimball Refurb and maintenance page

Both the Marimba Harp and Chrysoglott have now been rewinded and the difference in performance is striking (no pun intended). Although we have not had a chance to play them from the console yet, testing in the chamber demonstrates that you can now play repeating chords and all the notes will play. Volume and response seem to be orders of magnitude better. We’ll have a little regulation to do once we hook the console back up. Rob Kingdom, Jack Powers (picture on upper left below), Jerry Hertel and Mike Bryant (The "winding wizard" pictured lower right below) finished the installation of the winkers and associated rewinding last Friday (07/23). The new "winkers" are shown in picture on upper right below.
Mike finished releathering the four blown Chrysoglott pneumatics, and Rob reinstalled them. All notes now play. The Harp has one dead note that needs troubleshooting and correcting.

All of the traps and toy counters have been removed from the Main chamber and taken off site for repair and rebuilding. Jack Powers and Bob MacNeur assisted Rob in the removal. Mike has begun work on some pieces, and Rob has the remainder. Current plans call for some of the traps to be moved to the Solo chamber, where they can be mounted on a wall close to the shutters. This will enable them to be heard much better than the old layout. Refurbishment of the Sleigh Bells actions, Bird Whistle and Acme siren are in progress as of this date. We can look forward to stereo Bird Whistles, one in each chamber.

Some of the traps show signs of having been rebuilt in the past. While much of the work appears to have been quite well done, once installation began things went downhill. Silicone sealant or something like it (also known as “organ builder in a tube”) was used instead of the correct gasket or sealing material. This will all need to be cleaned off, and the wooden pieces refinished. Getting the sealant off without ruining the piece is a tough job and this turns a five minute job into a five day job. There will be opportunities for those who are so inclined to visit Mike’s house and help with the preparation and refurbishment. Contact Mike directly (mbryant3@earthlink.net or (206) 619-6645). By the way, the sealant gel shouldn't be confused with the Butyl o-rings used to seal the wind lines. The o-rings work out quite well and save a lot of time.

Donations to help pay for the materials (mostly leather) needed for the traps refurbishment will be gratefully accepted. Talk to Rob Kingdom or Rob Vastine if you want to help out, or can talk a friend into helping out.

Several of the traps were not usable simply because no control for them existed on the console. Mike is working to come up with a solution so that all devices can be used when they are reinstalled.
The Main Harmonic Tuba pressure has been raised to 15" from about 11". This should make the Tuba a little more assertive. Of course, it will require retuning. The 16' octave extension of this rank, the 16' Bombarde, still has problems. We believe it is a Robert Morton set with wooden resonators and should be speaking on 15" of pressure. It currently is on 10" and most notes just don't want to speak, sometimes at all. A separate regulator has been acquired and will be rebuilt and installed.
Many major and some minor wind leaks have been fixed in the Main chamber. The noise in the Main chamber was much louder than the Solo chamber. It now seems as the Main is quieter the the Solo!
The Main Tibia Clausa tremulant unit has been exchanged for a little larger one and installed in a different location (see picture lower left below). You may have noticed in the past that there was a huge difference in volume and tremulant operation between the Tibias in the Main and Solo chambers. This was caused by the pressure for the main Tibia being way too low, and the tremulant was the wrong size (it was a size appropriate for a Vox Humana, which doesn’t need to move nearly as much air through). We have installed heavier springs to bring the pressure up to where it should be, and Jonas Nordwall has provided us a mo' betta tremulant unit in exchange for the small one. Preliminary audition of the new tremulant sounds just great, it really wails! And after replacing a dead magnet, there are no dead notes in the Main Tibia!
Main Tibia Clausa pipes have had all the stoppers repacked and rough tuned. With these stoppers corrected and the rank re-regulated, the rank should just sing.
08/13/08 - Clayton and Rick Parks (Elsinore Theatre) stopped by Wednesday 8/13/08 to donate a Kimball Winker and dice box for future use. While they were here, they assisted with tuning the metal Diaphones in the Solo Chamber. Many of the pipes were way sharp and one had some trouble with slow speech. With the expertise of Clayton and Rick, all notes play, are in tune and speak properly. Many, Many thanks to Clayton and Rick.
08/25/08 Mike Bryant has refurbished the Sleigh bells and Surf/Aeroplane actions and they look just like or even maybe better than new. See pix above.
Fall 2008 Log Entries

09/03/08 - Because we were able to play the instrument from the console yesterday, we made the following observations:

Positive:
- The main Tibia Clausa with the new tremulant is fabulous. What a sound!
- The Marimba/Harp is plenty loud and now very useful
- The Chrysoglott is much improved
- The Main chamber noise is significantly lower and is less than the Solo
- With the III rank Mixture stop and wind chest removed, the Main chamber sound seems much more present. The Mixture was blocking some egress of the sound. The Mixture has been removed for long term refurbishing and relocation. (very, very long term refurb and relocation will probably be somewhere in the Portland metro area)
Less than optimum:
- The Main Tibia Clausa needs some regulation work to knock the rough edges off.
- The way the wind chests are installed with the walk boards over the chest, serious tuning and regulation work on the some of the reeds is shear Chinese water torture. Some rackbaord holes for the Orchestral Oboe are too small and the pipes don't seat correctly on the chest. Correcting this will be painful because of the location.
- The Chrysoglott has one blown pneumatic motor and both the harp and Chrys need regulation work
- The Main trumpet is a piece of ca-ca and needs a lot of work.
- Many rackboard holes for the whistles (upper work) are way oversize. This results in making it extremely difficult to tune if the pitch has to be lowered. You are trying to tap the collar up, and instead of moving, the pipe just lifts up out of the hole. Because the pipe sits (in some cases) directly under the walk board, you really can’t hold on to the pipe and tune it at the same time. So the technique is to pull the pipe, pull the collar way flat, then try to locate the hole in the chest by feel, and then tune it. These holes need to be reamed out to a size where they can be lined with felt that will grip the pipe.
- If the Chrysoglott continues to show up blown power pneumatics, it should probably be rebuilt completely. If that leather is going bad, the internal leather can’t be too far behind. And a rebuild is not something that can really be done in place.
- The harp does need quite a bit of regulation. At present it’s pretty clunky. It appears that attempts were made (unsuccessfully) to regulate it into playing correctly when the real problem was winding. So we need to undo that, and it should sound great. That’s an easy fix.
09/06/08 - Observations from the First Friday event: The organ sounds much better overall. The Main Harmonic Tuba tuning is not stable and will probably have to lower the pressure to about 12" to improve it.
09/21/08 - Mike Bryant has completed refurbishing the Chinese Gong/ Persian Cymbal action. See pictures above. Work continues on the Marr & Colton regulator for the 16' Robert-Morton Bombarde offset chest. Word from John Ledwon through Rick Parks is that the Bombarde should be on 15" wind pressure and if it is a later set, it should be on 20".

The following were generously donated by Don Galarneau:

2 1/2", 3" and 4 " PVC pipe fittings (elbows and Tee's)

Overall, the improvements and repairs are significant and will improve the quality of this great instrument quite a bit. And, the quality of the workmanship is world class! Many thanks to those who were able to participate.

The Oregon Chord
3/25 Kimball Refurb and Maintenance Log
Main II Regulator rebuild - 2007
The main II regulator was badly in need of repair, as the leather was old and rotten, and the gussets were blowing out. In July 2007, the regulator was removed and refurbished by Rob Kingdom. Because of the condition of the wood pieces, some had to be replaced. All the leather and felt was replaced with new.

Blown out gussets and rotten leather	New wooden parts on left ready to use

Underside of completed regulator. The bottom plate is all new as the old one had too many unused holes sealed with silicone gel to be really viable.	Completed Regulator, ready to install. Of the three top plates, the nearest two were made new as the condition of the old wood was not good.
Main and Solo Percussion Equalizers ("winkers") - June/July 2008
The percussions in the Main and Solo chambers were not winded properly and didn't play correctly. New winkers have been added in the Main, as well as new winding to make them play right. A Wurlitzer winker was generously donated but needed a lot of work, as it was in a fire. It got a new top plate, battens and spring retainer. A new, additional replica was made from surplus materials. Both the Main chamber Harp and Chrysoglott percussion sets play very well now they aren't starved for wind. The Harp has a new 4" line, feeding a custom built wooden manifold attached to the side of the Harp. The Chrysoglott line is 4" and tee's to 3" for the Chrysoglott and the traps that are installed above the Marimba/Harp. In the course of this task, we learned that both the Marimba/Harp and the Chrysoglott have primary, secondary, and tertiary pneumatics! Three pneumatics per note. Many of the traps action have the same configuration as well, which makes them very fast and responsive. Also during the course of this re-winding job, every effort was made to recycle materials. No new PVC pipe was purchased, only a few fittings. The wood used for the replica winker was surplus from previous projects and the wood for the Marimba/harp manifold was recycled from 90 year old theatre pipe organs. A very "Green" project!

Winkers before final finish and covering - the replica is the top one. All materials are recycled.	The rebuilt Wurlitzer "Winker" (upper left) in its new home, supplying air to the Harp at about 14" pressure. The lower right is a replica built by Rob Kingdom, supplying the Chrysoglott and traps at 13.5" pressure. The inlet to the winkers are mounted directly to the wind trunk.

Preparing the Marimba/Harp for the new wooden manifold. This required scraping and sanding off the silicone gel used for sealing the original flanges. The use of Silicone gel as a sealant is to be discouraged.	Pre-fitting the new Chrysoglott winker onto the wind trunk. Mounting the inlet directly to the wind trunk saves space and a couple of flanges and fittings. Notice that the technicians fingers never leave his hands.
Traps rebuild - August 2008

One of the Sleigh Bells actions after refurbishing by Mike Bryant. It just doesn't get any better than this!	The pneumatic motor has been recovered and the wood pieces are re-finished. Notice even the metal hinges and springs have been cleaned and polished.

The completed Surf/Aeroplane effect unit. The top portion is the Surf effect, the bottom is the Aeroplane effect. Again, superb workmanship from Mike Bryant.	The Surf effect has a movable brass plate that slides forth and back to simulate surf.

Completed Persian Cymbal Unit	The Persian Cymbal has a large motor for a Gong effect and two smaller motors for the Persian cymbal roll.
Review of the 2008 Summers' activities at the Cleveland Both the Marimba Harp and Chrysoglott have now been rewinded and the difference in performance is striking (no pun intended). Although we have not had a chance to play them from the console yet, testing in the chamber demonstrates that you can now play repeating chords and all the notes will play. Volume and response seem to be orders of magnitude better. We’ll have a little regulation to do once we hook the console back up. Rob Kingdom, Jack Powers (picture on upper left below), Jerry Hertel and Mike Bryant (The "winding wizard" pictured lower right below) finished the installation of the winkers and associated rewinding last Friday (07/23). The new "winkers" are shown in picture on upper right below. Mike finished releathering the four blown Chrysoglott pneumatics, and Rob reinstalled them. All notes now play. The Harp has one dead note that needs troubleshooting and correcting. All of the traps and toy counters have been removed from the Main chamber and taken off site for repair and rebuilding. Jack Powers and Bob MacNeur assisted Rob in the removal. Mike has begun work on some pieces, and Rob has the remainder. Current plans call for some of the traps to be moved to the Solo chamber, where they can be mounted on a wall close to the shutters. This will enable them to be heard much better than the old layout. Refurbishment of the Sleigh Bells actions, Bird Whistle and Acme siren are in progress as of this date. We can look forward to stereo Bird Whistles, one in each chamber. Some of the traps show signs of having been rebuilt in the past. While much of the work appears to have been quite well done, once installation began things went downhill. Silicone sealant or something like it (also known as “organ builder in a tube”) was used instead of the correct gasket or sealing material. This will all need to be cleaned off, and the wooden pieces refinished. Getting the sealant off without ruining the piece is a tough job and this turns a five minute job into a five day job. There will be opportunities for those who are so inclined to visit Mike’s house and help with the preparation and refurbishment. Contact Mike directly (mbryant3@earthlink.net or (206) 619-6645). By the way, the sealant gel shouldn't be confused with the Butyl o-rings used to seal the wind lines. The o-rings work out quite well and save a lot of time. Donations to help pay for the materials (mostly leather) needed for the traps refurbishment will be gratefully accepted. Talk to Rob Kingdom or Rob Vastine if you want to help out, or can talk a friend into helping out. Several of the traps were not usable simply because no control for them existed on the console. Mike is working to come up with a solution so that all devices can be used when they are reinstalled. The Main Harmonic Tuba pressure has been raised to 15" from about 11". This should make the Tuba a little more assertive. Of course, it will require retuning. The 16' octave extension of this rank, the 16' Bombarde, still has problems. We believe it is a Robert Morton set with wooden resonators and should be speaking on 15" of pressure. It currently is on 10" and most notes just don't want to speak, sometimes at all. A separate regulator has been acquired and will be rebuilt and installed. Many major and some minor wind leaks have been fixed in the Main chamber. The noise in the Main chamber was much louder than the Solo chamber. It now seems as the Main is quieter the the Solo! The Main Tibia Clausa tremulant unit has been exchanged for a little larger one and installed in a different location (see picture lower left below). You may have noticed in the past that there was a huge difference in volume and tremulant operation between the Tibias in the Main and Solo chambers. This was caused by the pressure for the main Tibia being way too low, and the tremulant was the wrong size (it was a size appropriate for a Vox Humana, which doesn’t need to move nearly as much air through). We have installed heavier springs to bring the pressure up to where it should be, and Jonas Nordwall has provided us a mo' betta tremulant unit in exchange for the small one. Preliminary audition of the new tremulant sounds just great, it really wails! And after replacing a dead magnet, there are no dead notes in the Main Tibia! Main Tibia Clausa pipes have had all the stoppers repacked and rough tuned. With these stoppers corrected and the rank re-regulated, the rank should just sing. 08/13/08 - Clayton and Rick Parks (Elsinore Theatre) stopped by Wednesday 8/13/08 to donate a Kimball Winker and dice box for future use. While they were here, they assisted with tuning the metal Diaphones in the Solo Chamber. Many of the pipes were way sharp and one had some trouble with slow speech. With the expertise of Clayton and Rick, all notes play, are in tune and speak properly. Many, Many thanks to Clayton and Rick. 08/25/08 Mike Bryant has refurbished the Sleigh bells and Surf/Aeroplane actions and they look just like or even maybe better than new. See pix above. Fall 2008 Log Entries 09/03/08 - Because we were able to play the instrument from the console yesterday, we made the following observations: Positive: The main Tibia Clausa with the new tremulant is fabulous. What a sound! The Marimba/Harp is plenty loud and now very useful The Chrysoglott is much improved The Main chamber noise is significantly lower and is less than the Solo With the III rank Mixture stop and wind chest removed, the Main chamber sound seems much more present. The Mixture was blocking some egress of the sound. The Mixture has been removed for long term refurbishing and relocation. (very, very long term refurb and relocation will probably be somewhere in the Portland metro area) Less than optimum: The Main Tibia Clausa needs some regulation work to knock the rough edges off. The way the wind chests are installed with the walk boards over the chest, serious tuning and regulation work on the some of the reeds is shear Chinese water torture. Some rackbaord holes for the Orchestral Oboe are too small and the pipes don't seat correctly on the chest. Correcting this will be painful because of the location. The Chrysoglott has one blown pneumatic motor and both the harp and Chrys need regulation work The Main trumpet is a piece of ca-ca and needs a lot of work. Many rackboard holes for the whistles (upper work) are way oversize. This results in making it extremely difficult to tune if the pitch has to be lowered. You are trying to tap the collar up, and instead of moving, the pipe just lifts up out of the hole. Because the pipe sits (in some cases) directly under the walk board, you really can’t hold on to the pipe and tune it at the same time. So the technique is to pull the pipe, pull the collar way flat, then try to locate the hole in the chest by feel, and then tune it. These holes need to be reamed out to a size where they can be lined with felt that will grip the pipe. If the Chrysoglott continues to show up blown power pneumatics, it should probably be rebuilt completely. If that leather is going bad, the internal leather can’t be too far behind. And a rebuild is not something that can really be done in place. The harp does need quite a bit of regulation. At present it’s pretty clunky. It appears that attempts were made (unsuccessfully) to regulate it into playing correctly when the real problem was winding. So we need to undo that, and it should sound great. That’s an easy fix. 09/06/08 - Observations from the First Friday event: The organ sounds much better overall. The Main Harmonic Tuba tuning is not stable and will probably have to lower the pressure to about 12" to improve it. 09/21/08 - Mike Bryant has completed refurbishing the Chinese Gong/ Persian Cymbal action. See pictures above. Work continues on the Marr & Colton regulator for the 16' Robert-Morton Bombarde offset chest. Word from John Ledwon through Rick Parks is that the Bombarde should be on 15" wind pressure and if it is a later set, it should be on 20". The following were generously donated by Don Galarneau: 2 1/2", 3" and 4 " PVC pipe fittings (elbows and Tee's) Overall, the improvements and repairs are significant and will improve the quality of this great instrument quite a bit. And, the quality of the workmanship is world class! Many thanks to those who were able to participate.
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