Subject: Console pneumatics

Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 15:09:42 EDT

I can't believe I spent the last two hours searching over hill and dael, = the basement, closets, chamber for the rack of 8 pneumatics that came out of = the console 2 years ago, and it was on the floor by the console the whole = time where I took it out with the other stuff in the console last night real = late arghhh!!! I was worried it somehow was thrown away or who knows what, then I even started to wonder if there WAS such a thing or if the 4 pneumatic rack I = had in hand was somehow confused with there being another one. I knew there = was another because I had one pneumatic I took out to look at 2 years ago and found that. Okay heres my new problem :) I have the coupler control box, when viewed from the back of the console, reading from left to right were the following lead tubes once came from = these holes; Gt-ped rev Gt-ped rev Gt 4 Gt 16 Sw-Gt Sw-Gt 4 Sw-Gt 16 Sw- Unison Sw 4 Sw 16 Lieb Ged Flute Sw-Ped Gt-ped The last four went to a rack of 4 pneumatics mounted on the pedal contact board on the floor of the console, that's easy enough to figure out which pneumatic went with which tube, same for the Gt- Ped rev. The other 8 tubes went to the rack of 8 pneumatics which if you are = looking inside from the back of the console was mounted hanging from the left underside of the manual support frame. 8 threaded rods went up through the = support frame rail and 5 went to 5 of the 6 the great contact shifters and = 3 went to the sw contact shifters. With the tubing long gone and the pneumatics not labeled any way, I have = no realistic way to determine WHICH pneumatic was connected to which tube on = the control box, and thus, which pneumatic does what. Sitting on the BENCH now for reference purposes, looking at the great's 5 = sliding contact rails, plus 1 fixed in place non movable, the threaded = rods and contact rail shifter pivots are on the right. The first rail nearest = the organist is fixed in place with a set screw and does not move, the other 5 = do by the threaded rods from the pneumatics below. For the swell I made a mistake in posting last night, actually all 3 of = it's contact shift rails DO move and are controlled by the 3 threaded rods = coming up from the pneumatics below. Only the one on the great is fixed in place = to not move. Does anyone know about this? I think if I can get this information first, then I can finish wiring the = manuals to the terminal board because I will know what each of the 8 = contact rails DOES and what they were originally connected to. Any leads will help! The one fixed in place rail on the Great has an adjustment screw on it, I am thinking this was a main strip, and then two = of the rails of course lack a wire to 12 of their contacts so one has to be = the 4' and one is the 16' coupler. Looking at the control box, I gather these = 3 went to the 3 contact rails on the swell; Sw- Unison Sw 4 Sw 16 I should be able to figure that one out, so it's really the other 5 that = are a semi-mystery; Gt 4 Gt 16 Sw-Gt Sw-Gt 4 Sw-Gt 16 And the last item there at issue is the Sw-Gt coupler which is a little confusing, I gather the Great has a contact strip whose wires are = connected to a strip on the Swell via the terminal board in the console, the = connection made and broken by one sliding contact rail of the great's 6, which = one??!! Randall

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Subject: More Console pneumatics

Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 03:43:24 EDT

I now have the coupler chest's 14 pneumatic pouches all replaced with new, = and all 28 fiber disks releathered and waiting till tommorow to reinstall. After stopping on that I started working on the rack of 8 pneumatics. The = old black bellows cloth was tough to get off so it came off in bits and = pieces. I seem to remember seeing Bob at work who does pneumatics and reservoirs = using an old cloth for a cut-out pattern as opposed to cutting a long strip, = gluing and then trimming but I don't see any difference one way or the other. The problem I had was dealing with the cardboard strips inside, I traced = the originals for the first pneumatic onto some shoebox cardboard which was = the right thickness, cut the 6 strips I needed and set them aside. I glued a 2" by 5 or 6" strip of new cloth on the hinge end and then = trimmed it all around, then started the longer strip overlapping the hinge strip = by about 1" like the original and glued the first side holding the two boards = open with a spacer block to obtain the 1-7/8-2" maximum spread width = these have. Then I glued in the first two strips of cardboard inside. So far so good, tedious and not a lot of finger room to work with but it worked okay. The second side I could see trying to glue the cardboard in after gluing = the cloth on would be hard to reach in far enough to make sure the cardboard = was pressed down well etc., so I glued the cardboard onto the cloth first then = the cloth to the wood, same for the third side which had to glue down to = the wood somewhat blind as far as telling how the cardboard was fitting in between the boards inside. Then finished with a 1" overlap on the hinge side again. There is a spring that has to go back on the hinge end into two holes = which will be fun to try finding under the new cloth, and an eye on the business = end for the threaded rod. It took a while to do, I have a feeling there's an easier faster way = because I can't see Moller or any other builder having someone essentially spend = an entire day on a handful of these pneumatics. It really shouldn't be hard = to glue a strip of cloth around two boards and do it in a few minutes. Thankfully there are only 12 of these and if this first one turns out okay = then there's 11 to do. Year ago around age 16 I rebuild a player piano and had to redo 88 tiny pneumatics, but those had no cardboard inside and were real easy, the internal cardboard stiffeners sure do add a whole other issue to = recovering these. Randall

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