Looking good Tom. I'm anxious to read your opinion on how hard it is to put the leather on the bellows. That part has me a little intimidated.

This whole organ thing got discussed pretty loudly with my wife yesterday while we were working in the yard. Good thing we live in the country. She says I have more important things to get done, like get ready to move. We just have too much (5 acres) to take care of and we are getting too old for all the work. She is correct, but I drag me feet because I built my house and love my place. So many great memories here.

I don't have a clue why I am writing this. I am still going to get started on the organ soon.
 
Paul, so far this project has not really been dificult....once you understand what is happening. I have make a couple of mistakes so far. It may have taken me several hours to figure out how to do something but actually building it goes much quicker. I spent several hours carefully cutting and glueing..clamping up the bellows only to realize that I glued my batton strips in the wrong place, :huh: :dunno: so I started all over. I had my new "correct" bellows cut, glued and done in only about 20 minutes. So once you know what your doing it goes much quicker but the learning curve (at least for me) is steep. I expect it to be the same for the cloth application, although I only hope to have to do that once. I will study it and ask lots of questions then attempt it. The video does a good job of showing how it is done. I'm sure I will watch it many more times.

Paul, I know all too well what it is like to try to tackle too many projects at once and all I can say is...learn to take your time and you will enjoy the process more. I'm sure this organ will play the same whether you build it now or three years from now. I kind of put woodworking on hold the past 15 years as I pursued my passion for a photography career. I now find that I enjoy woodworking just as I did 15 years ago, and all my tools still work.

Tom
 
He’s baaaaaack!! I’m back at it after a long recess due to frustration with my build and some respiratory problems. Where I left off, in December, was that I had an air leak somewhere between the inside seam of the bellows, and when trying to find it, un-screwing and re-screwing the air reservoir to the bellows, I snapped the head off several screws. In frustration, and because I needed to turn a bunch of bowels, pens and bottle stoppers for Christmas, I put it away. In February, I came down with pneumonia (Dr. diagnosed), and again (my diagnosis) right after the Tour DeWood left.

Finally got to where I wouldn’t pass out from extreme fits of coughing, and the weather was nice for a while, so I got back into the shop last week. I gently pried the air reservoir from the bellows without any damage, re-glued the seams and spacer between the bellows, and glued up a nice wide rubber gasket over narrow one that I had at the top of the bellows. I then re-drilled the holes in the air reservoir, oversize, so the screws would pull the bellows up tight. Now, I’m sure my problem was that the screws threaded in the air reservoir and the bellows, maintaining a gap rather than pulling the bellows up tight. I knew the proper way to do things, but I didn’t do it. Most of my building has been garage cabinets where things aren’t real critical.

Well, the air system it air tight, and I am maintaining 7” while putting a LOT of pressure on the bellows and air supply. NOTHING is escaping. Now I have to adjust the spring to get 5” on the manometer. I glued the brass nipples into the bottom of my tracker bar, gave it a few coats of lacquer and it is ready to go after I glue some backing to the underneath of the tracker bar platform. I think Ed made this suggestion, to give extra support to your tracker bar mounting screws.

I went through the posts since I left. Both Carol and Tom asked if I could send a copy of my notes and pictures. Basically this is 88 pages of cut and paste info, pictures and notes that I have made on my build. I would be happy to email it to anyone building an organ. PM me your email adderess and I’ll get them off to you.

A few people are asking about Baltic Burch. If you have a Rockler or Woodcraft anywhere near you, they both carry it, in 1/16 on up.

For the newbe’s, my frustration has been with my lack of building skills, not with the organ. I suggest you follow the plans and don’t try to make any modifications. Make your mods on your second organ.

Good luck everyone.
 
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Hey Chuck, glad to hear that your feeling better. I look forward to seeing (hearing) your finished project. I have started mine and am slow but moving forward. I'll send you a PM for your notes.

Thanks,
Tom
 
Chuck, glad you are back, but don't over do it. Takes a long time to completely get over pneumonia and easy to have a recurrence.

I haven't started yet, but received the plans a week or so ago and have studying them some. Hope to actually start building sometime in the near future.

I'd really appreciate any info you are willing to send me.
 
Good to see you're back on track Chuck!

Regarding leaks, I wasn't happy with the idea of using a piece of window blind material to seal the gap between the feeders and the reservoir. I built the bottom frame of my reservoir like a window frame with a "pane" that fits over the top bellows board and seals that cover the entire edge around each opening.

The rails on the sides of the frame to attach it to the bellows board are rabbeted into dados on the sides of the frame so the pressure on the bolts are actually holding down the frame rather than the glue line where it is attached.

The rails are attached to the feeders with bolts that go into blind nuts inside the bellows so there is no concern about stripping screw holes if/when I ever need to take this apart again.

On another topic, how long is it taking for other people to get the Topsy plans delivered to the U.S.? I ordered them 4/28 and got an email from Diane saying they would go out the next day. Not that I have to get started on this anytime soon...

senior_20_reservoir.jpg
 
Yikes, sorry about the giant picture!

I tried to attach this using the attach image button on quick reply.
How do I add a picture with the cool thumbnails like everyone else
shows in their posts?
 
Gary The plans shouldn't take more than 10 days I mailed some stuff to there and it only took 8 days and that was around the time of the eruption so you should have them by now. I would check with Diana to see what has happened.

As far as pictures hit the post reply button at the bottom of message area and then scroll down to Additional Options and click on Manage Attachments and that's where you download the pictures that will but them in the attachment button on the top of message window.
You will need to resize them down to 150kb I use Faststone viewer and Fastone Photo resizer both freeware and I really like them because they are easy and FREE.

Jay
 
Thanks Jay,

I didn't expect to see my messy glue-up bench in such detail on the web ;-)
I use PIXResizer and Picasa for my web pages, both are excellent and free.

Diane Smith reply to my email and said my package was sent out with a big
batch on April 29 by standard Royal Mail (no tracking) and probably has gone missing so she will send me out another copy. Anyone else in the group who is still waiting for plans ordered in the same timeframe that I did should probably check back with her.
 
The British name for the material in the plans is blackout curtain. Here it's the material that is used to make roller blinds. Plastic on one side, cloth on the back.

It's not in the written instructions. In the video it was shown to be used to seal the gap in the space between the 2 top bellows boards under the reservoir.
 
Ok, now I have heard the term "blackout material". That is on my list of questions that I had for Jay. Understanding all the "terms" used in this build is a process all to itself.

Thanks,
Tom
 
Tom the Bellows cloth you got from me is what replaces the blackout material

Gary I have that available if you need it just send me a private message if you want to know more I dont think you can buy blackout material as cheap as this bellows cloth.
Jay
 
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