About two months ago when Moncton had their annual spring clean day Melanie, Nate and I went (as they say in Ontario) "Junking". As we were driving by this one house Melanie saw an organ and exclaimed: "Hey, my friend had one of those and I've always wanted one." So I stopped and picked it off the side of the road and loaded it into our van
After having it sit around my shop for several months I finally worked up the courage to tackle this project. It ended up being a lot simpler than I thought.
Process:
First I wanted to figure out whether it even worked. I had tried it briefly a couple of months ago and it didn't seem to work so now that I had a closer look at it I realized that there was a small little switch on the side of the organ. Once I turned it on it started whirring and to my surprise it actually worked.
First thing I did was take it all apart. It was actually really easy. A couple of screws at the bottom and a few marretts to disconnect the chord and I could open it up. Then a few more screws, a little c-clip and I could slide out the plastic keys of the keyboard.
After grinding off some of the rust on a couple of brackets and a good "deep-clean" of all the plastic parts I put it all back together, sanded off the rust on the brass feet on the legs of the organ and put it all back together. After many long-lasting and sometimes frustrating projects, this was a nice and quick and enjoyable restoration project.
Pictures:
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| The Major and Minor Chord keys |
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| The true ugly beauty. Just the way we found "her" |
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| Close-up of the keys |
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| Springs put pressure on the keys to keep the reed holes closed |
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| Some water must have gotten into the organ and started rusting the brackets and the steel rods that allow the keys to pivot on |
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| Side view after the main keys were all taken off. |
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| The keys after they were all individually scrubbed with soap and water |
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| All the parts that I had taken off, cleaned. The rusted brackets were wire brushed and painted black |
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| Half-way through the re-assembly |
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| Ready to put the shell back on |
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| The finished produc |
Tools:
Screw driver, grinder, brushes
Materials:
Some paint, soap and water
Cost:
$0.00
Time:
3hr
Savings:
$50.00
Conclusion:
Very enjoyable unless Nate plays it, which he loves to do!
