The instrument had two areas of focus for the year:  The elimination of dead notes in the middle three octaves of most 8’ stops, and the renovation of the second-touch action, to complete the console work begun last year. 

 The latter had the contribution of several TOSDV members including Jack Schartzenberg, Bill Gellhaus, Tom Rotunno, and Bernie McGorrey contributing Time, Talent, and Treasure in varying amounts to make this happen.  There are some fine points yet to be attended to, with some minor warranty work by the console contractor (Mudler-Hunter Organ Company) to be completed, particularly regarding the Solo Manual combination action and cancels, but otherwise the instrument continues to improve if played more rather than less often. 

The former, elimination of dead notes, is an important, though tedious chore.  Many root causes need to be found, addressed, and remediated.  Dead notes can be caused by any of the moving parts involved in each note action, the pipes themselves (sometimes voicing, sometimes missing entirely), the action magnet for the note including adjustment of the armature distance, or possibly the relay.  Addressing each note can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 hours depending on the complexity of the issue.  For example, middle D on the 8’ Vox Humana had stopped playing on this past Friday, when it had been playing the previous week.  After checking the pipe itself, the magnet, and the armature distance, the primary valve for the note was adjusted, correcting the issue.  This took one hour to go through this troubleshooting protocol.  At last count, more than 20 dead notes in the three-middle octave range were corrected in the past year across multiple stops.

 For the upcoming year, we plan on continuing to correct dead notes and console issues, moving past the 3-octave-scheme and working on dead notes in the lower octaves of the instrument, particularly the Tibia Plena, Bourdon, 8’ Diaphonic Diapason, and 16’ Tibia Clausa.  A supply of 150-Ohm adjustable armature Reisner magnets would go a long way toward solving this, as would two skins of Thin Chrome-Pneumatic-tanned leather, to attend to some water-damaged pouches on the 16’ Tibi a Plena.

 The most recent two work sessions involved tuning, as the two chambers’ tuning had drifted apart enough to create “Diapason Celeste” between the diapason stops in each chamber.  The Open Diapason pipes in each chamber had the temperament set, with the diapasons tuned to each other, with the reeds in each chamber then tuned, along with the Tibia Clausa.  The flues (VDO & Celeste II, Concert Flute, Gemshorn & celeste, and Viola d’Amore will have to be covered in another session.  12 hours between the past two Fridays.)