From a recent assessment of the organ:
Of the eight ranks, two are incomplete and have been since the organ was built.
It was common practice in small tracker instruments to have certain ranks share
a bass octave to save space and cost. It is uncommon to have three ranks sharing
one bass, but that's what we have at Peotone. The two incomplete ranks are both designed
to emulate string tones, but they share a common bass with a flute. That doesn't
provide a good tonal match, and having only one bass for three ranks means the organ
loses much in the bass registers where it often counts the most.
Two other ranks and part of a third are constructed of wood with "plugs" at the top.
These plugs, known as stoppers, serve two purposes. The are the mechanism by which the
pipe is tuned, and they determine the tone of the pipe. The stoppers have a leather
gasket to ensure they are completely sealed. Obviously the leather is a perishable
material that needs to be renewed from time to time, usually about every 40 years,
maybe a bit longer.
Wind regulator. The current wind regulator was designed to provide stable wind when
the organ was originally hand-pumped. As such, it is an *enormous* regulator
and has features that are simply unnecessary in an organ that is equipped with a blower.
It still has the original "feeder" bellows that would have been attached to the pumping
mechanism (which is lost to time), and it has a double-rise top on it to significantly
increase the volume of wind available. That was to be sure that if the organist pulled
out all the stops, there was adequate wind available without killing the choir
boys doing the pumping.
Playing mechanism. As you know, the entire mechanism that connects the keyboard and
pedalboard to the wind
chest is mechanical. There is a series of wooden slats, pivots, right-angle bends called
squares, and other pieces involved in what is a fairly complex matrix. Each piece has
at least two and sometimes three places where it is pulled, pushed, swung, or otherwise
moved every time the organist plays that key. As you can imagine, over 100 years
the amount of wear can be significant.
Wind chests. This is actually where our biggest concerns with the instrument began. The
wind chest, which holds the pipework and contains the valves and other mechanisms that
allow the pipes to play, has been effectively destroyed by the changes in temperature
and humidity over the past 100 years. Specifically, the grid that makes up the X-Y
axis we discussed has developed extensive cracking, which means that notes physically
adjacent to the one being played are also playing more softly, which is very unmusical!
Because of the layout of the chest, being physically adjacent on the chest doesn't mean
it is a consecutive note on the keyboard. In one case in particular, a note
roughly in the middle of the keyboard caused one near the top of the keyboard to "weep",
because they are adjacent on the wind chest. Casework. I've already addressed this
in part while discussing the console above. I must say that the stenciling on the facade
pipes is nothing short of stunning, and was done very well. It is, both in design and
colors, very appropriate for the room. There is nothing about this that we would
change in any way.
The wooden portion of the casework is in very good condition. Other than removing
the console and
fabricating new panels in its place, it requires very little. There is one place
where a switch / outlet panel was added to the case, and undoubtedly there
have been a few screws and nails indiscriminately applied over the years. We will
remove the switch and repair that panel, and will repair any other screw and nail
holes we find, but there ought to be very little to do to the casework. If desired
the case could be stripped and refinished, but we're not suggesting it at this
point. That may be another project that someone in the congregation would
take on while the organ is being rebuilt. Finally, expression control. The organist
has at her disposal the ability to make the organ louder and softer by means of a
"gas pedal" above the pedalboard. A common misconception is that she is actually
controlling the volume of the pipes themselves. What is actually happening is that
she is opening and closing a set of vertical wooden louvers called shades, and
is controlling the amount of sound that is allowed out of the organ chamber. The
actual volume of the pipes does not change. Think of it as closing your office
door so those outside won't hear your conversations.
[received via on-line form from Ron Christensen, parishioner, January 11, 2010.]