02/02/2024
The pipes of the Pfeffer organ were in need of repair too. All of the metal pipes were washed with a mild chelating agent to remove the dirt and grime that had collected over the years. Dents were removed and damaged toes were reshaped as needed. New stainless steel tuning collars replaced the aluminum collars from the 1970s. The feet of the Dulciana were so badly bowed that we made replacements with thicker metal for many of them.
The façade pipes needed special attention. First, we cleaned them with Simple Green, safely lifting away decades of dust, soot, and bird droppings without damaging the underlying paint or silver leaf. The colors that emerged were astonishingly vibrant! One pipe had been very badly damaged long ago. The lower lip had been pushed way in, then something caused the languid to be smashed down past it, obliterating the sensitive geometry between them that allows the pipe to speak. Plus, the pipe was riddled with dents. Ryan was able to disassemble the pipe, reconstruct the lower lip, make a new languid, and successfully put it back together. Mark and Timothy then replicated the stencil and filled in the missing paint. The appearance and tone match the others seamlessly.
The original bass pipes of the Dulciana were inexplicably discarded in the 1970s and replaced with full-length Aeoline basses protruding crudely through the ceiling. Pfeffer would have originally used stopped wood or stopped metal pipes for this. Unable to determine which he used here, we chose to make new wood pipes using the same scale and construction details as the Gedeckt in his 1887 instrument that we restored a few years ago. They fit very nicely in the space available. Ryan voiced them with a prominent quint tone, making them a good match for the metal pipes.
The Gamba in this organ is also a replacement for the original rank, but here all 61 pipes were replaced. These basses were also full length and protruded through the ceiling. We suspect that if the metal chosen to make the original Gamba pipes was as thin as was used on the Dulciana, the original Gamba pipes might have also bowed and collapsed, but been deemed too badly damaged for repair. We chose to retain this replacement rank, rather than make our own speculative reconstruction of what Pfeffer might have used. However, we had to deal with the bass pipes sticking through the ceiling. We decided to cut the longest pipes short enough to fit inside the case, but make qualifying tube inserts that allow the pipe to speak with tone quality and pitch as a full length pipe.
Following a little corrective voicing on individual pipes, the organ begins to regain its original sound!
