Thread: pipe organ problem

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What would you guys do? I lucked out late last year, and a neighbor gave me an organ....full size, 2 keyboards, etc. He had had it sitting on his porch due to lack of room, so it was rained on, and missing several keys. Awesome...instant pipe organ.
But as is, I am full on storage, so I had to store it at my friend down the street...my primary building help. This thing is heavy. Heavy to move down the street and back. His wife checked out playing it, she says with the missing keys, its nearly impossible to play a tune, plus it may need tuning, if that applies to organs. my budget is blown, more or less, so I gotta go cheap with everything else.
So, I have 2 possibilities...either leave it as is, and go ahead and add the pipes for a pipe organ(pvc already bought), OR gut the thing. Then its a lot lighter, and I have rotisserie motors we were thinking might be installed to run cranks to move a buckys hands over the keyboard. Plus cd player organ music and maybe a fogger to have fog coming out the pipes.
What would you guys do? Keep it intact, or gut it?
Also, if I gut it, anyone interested in organ guts at Ironstock prop swap, if I do my best to keep them intact?

First, what type/brand of organ is it? and is it a tube type organ? Most old tube organs have little value intact, except Hammods. However, in peices they may bring some $$$ again depending on the model age etc.

Heres my suggestion, gut it and see if there are any similar parts on ebay and if they are selling and for what. List those that sell. Now the organ is lighter... Next try to take the cabinet apart, number the parts and then you can store it in the knocked down state and put it back together for halloween.

If the amp has an external input you could hook a cd player to it and use it and the speaker for an awsome sound system, Much better then computer speakers.

I've have 2 church organs on works the other does not, its going to be gutted and knocked apart, still have not decided what to do with the other one, I used it last year for my grim organist and played organ music thru it.

I built some stand alone PVC pipe and put some lights in them and had the lights hooked to a light organ so different pipes would flash to the music....had a provision for fog but ran out of time to get it all plumbed up...

A pic is attached the organist was built from plans the I got from devious concoctions. the plans for this year are to motorize the key board so the keys move up and down.

Best of luck

Jeez Scare I wish I knew how to do all that!! I have a wurlitzer organ, its mine had it for some years it has the leslie speakers in it for cathedral playing but the tube for the "F's" is out so all the F's on the keyboards are out. I'm gonna dig it out of the garage here hopefully in the next month (ha! working my way thru boxes to get to it!).

It has a built in cassette player so you would be able to record music as you play. I can also just play any cassettes in it so I thought I would find a cassette or make one of the Phantom of the Opera or something like that.

It will be in my funeral parlor scene and I was looking at that "grim organist" on the Monster List for doing the background & pipes. Not sure I'll be able to do something that elaborate as we have to many other projects going on so I think it will just have PVC pipes & we will work on it more next next year.

Hope you guys post pictures as I would love to see them. This was the last thing my Dad bought for me before he died. I was in 8th grade so I've kept it & lugged this organ around all these years. I won't be gutting it cause I still play it!lol (Ya know I play "Red Sails in the Sunset".......you're to young to remember that song!!lol)

Muf

Muffy, its not that hard to build one, I didn't try to put it in a bucky so it was easier to build. I do better on the mechanical side then on the creative side. It help to have some plans to go by. there is a short clip of the naked organist on my photo bucket page.

What I'd really like is to find an old pump organ some are real orniate and would fit the old cementary better. Motorizing the foot pedels and if it had a mirror making it into a magic mirror would be cool....Yikes need more room for storage already....

Hang on to the leslie speaker they are always in demand.

If it were me, I'd gut it and add the pipes and mechanisms to move keys and/or hands.

Lighter is better and it gives you room to add other electronics and gadgets inside.

I vote gut it. A friend made a fake pipe organ and customized a dancing Santa into the phantom playing it. Great effect! Obviously the hands don't hit the keys, but you know what? Nobody cares! Spooky lighting with long shadows, motion and a CD playing the organ music from the Ghost and Mr. Chicken all combine ointo a very cool prop.

I you haven't already done so, look it over carefully and find the name and model of the organ. Then spend 30 minutes or so on the internet to find out what you have. It's probably worthless, but IMO it's foolish to gut it until you know what you have. If not worth much, gut it. Look on ebay for organ repair parts and list what you think you can sell.

FWIW

GUT IT!!! sell off what you can, and save on the weight. You might want to think about poping off the sides and top and use 1/4" ply. and foam board to thickin it out a little, that should lightin the weight.

Scareisburg......I could not get the organist video to play.

Muf

My 2 cents worth, gut it. and make the body of the organ so it is lite weight and easier to store.