Just wanted to quickly introduce myself to this list. My name is Randy Newman and i've been interested in pipe organs since about 6th grade when I had 2 ranks playing in my parents basement. A water pipe above the organ caused some real havoc on my months of work and i soon gave it up. I'm now 24 and ready to try again.
So far i've aquired about 6 ranks of pipework and most of the needed accessories and am about to start setting it all up in the basement of my New Brunswick, NJ house that i share with my 3 college roomates. they think i'm a bit crazy but are fairly tolerant of the mess and smell of hide glue. I tend to favor the early 20th century "orchestral" style of organ building (i'm a real sucker for strings), but am also quite interested in theater organs and other styles of classical organs.
Phase one for the basement organ includes getting my 16' pedal bourdon, 8' open diapason, 8' viole, and 8' gedeckt, and 8' oboe playing. there will be some moderate unification. 7' ceilings are my biggest obstacle but with the help of some haskell basses and creative layout I think everything will fit. Future plans include an 8' doppleflute (anyone have one forsale?), an 8' clarinet (or one of these?), and more strings! (6-rank moller string divison in the works should take care of this one).
Email Randy