Author Topic: Hand Cranked Organ winter project  (Read 50286 times)

Offline Powder Keg

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Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« on: January 03, 2010, 12:13:51 AM »
My wife and I decided to build a small hand cranked organ this winter. I never "needed one" But I like the way they sound. There are a few examples on the net. Here is one example.



They really aren't that hard to build I don't think? There are a few pieces to them though. It will be a 20 note organ. We just started on it. But I have some of the things that I need rounded up and waiting. I'll snap some pictures tomorrow.
Wesley P
A Gismo ??? If it has a flywheel or spins and is made with small parts. I'll take one! If it makes noise, moves, or requires frequent oiling and dusting it's a better deal yet. It's especially right if its shiny and bright; but if it's dirty and dull it wont mater at all...

Offline ronginger

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2010, 07:01:51 PM »
I built one of the John Smith 20 note organs 6 or 7 years ago. It was a great project, lots of fun to take to shows- I call it my 'smile machine' because everyone that passes it breaks out in big smiles.

Be very cautious of the plans- trust NOTHING until you double check the other parts., Although the John Smith plans have opened a huge hobby, they are really very poor plans. I guess he understands that because he has a note bout it in the plans and on his web page. On the 20 note he gives some dimensions for the feed rollers, and he gives some text about the ratio. They are not the same, if you build it to the drawings the speed is wrong. My organ has lots of extra holes in the case where I had to move things to get them to fit properly. I started out just taking the drawing and making parts, only when I went to put things together did I figure out the problems.

I did not find any errors in the pipe dimensions.

I just ordered the plans for the 26 note and the Midi organ. Again, the plans are just crude hand sketches, and it takes a long time to study and get them figured out- he does include a DVD that helps a lot. I want to build a MIDI organ, probably a 65 key.

Its a great project, lots of fun to show and both satisfying and frustrating to build. There have been a couple other 20 note and one 26 note at Cabin Fever. The 26 note was a beautiful job, sorry I lost the name of the fellow that built it. He was there last year, hope to see it again this year.


Offline Powder Keg

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2010, 03:40:31 PM »
Thanks For your input Ron. I've heard that about the plans before. I've been looking them over. I love how e has metric and english dimensions on the same drawing. I'm pretty excited about this project.
Wesley P
A Gismo ??? If it has a flywheel or spins and is made with small parts. I'll take one! If it makes noise, moves, or requires frequent oiling and dusting it's a better deal yet. It's especially right if its shiny and bright; but if it's dirty and dull it wont mater at all...

Offline NickG

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2010, 04:13:38 PM »
Sounds pretty complicated to me Wes! Interesting though, I'll certainly be watching if you managed to get any pics on here. I see a guy at all the shows up here that stands there cranking it over - I always thought it must be a bit boring repeating the same tunes but it never occured to me that he may have built it!

Nick
Location: County Durham (North East England)

Offline Powder Keg

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2010, 09:16:49 PM »
Nick, It's way simpler than it looks. There are 3 billows inside, a pressure box,  and an air bar that directs the air to each whistle. The music is made with paper tapes that when the holes move over the air bar air goes through the hole to the whistle. You can put a couple songs on each paper roll and the rolls are easily changed. That way you can play more than one song:o)

There are quite a few parts though. But if you break them down to pieces it won't be so bad. I don't think?

This weekend we cut up a 1" X 6" popular board into strips that were 2" X 3/16" thick on my band saw. I then took the strips to a buddy's house. He has a thickness sander and we sanded the strips down to 1/8" thick. I haven't had a chance to do any more yet. I had a couple things come up.

 :proj:
Wesley P
A Gismo ??? If it has a flywheel or spins and is made with small parts. I'll take one! If it makes noise, moves, or requires frequent oiling and dusting it's a better deal yet. It's especially right if its shiny and bright; but if it's dirty and dull it wont mater at all...

Offline NickG

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #5 on: January 05, 2010, 03:26:25 AM »
Wes,

Sounds good (no pun). I've always wondered how they work. So are the paper tapes readily available standard sizes etc?

Nick
Location: County Durham (North East England)

Offline Powder Keg

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2010, 11:26:14 AM »
Yes, There's a couple of places that sell the tapes. I'm probably going to order a couple to make sure that the bought tapes fit when the organ is built. A lot of people make a punch so they can make their own music. I'll probably end up going this route for most of my music:o)
Wesley P
A Gismo ??? If it has a flywheel or spins and is made with small parts. I'll take one! If it makes noise, moves, or requires frequent oiling and dusting it's a better deal yet. It's especially right if its shiny and bright; but if it's dirty and dull it wont mater at all...

Offline websterz

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #7 on: January 05, 2010, 01:12:29 PM »
Nothing like hand cranking the old organ to get a fella thru the long cold winter nights.  :bugeye:
"In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird.  Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal."
 :med:

Offline Powder Keg

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #8 on: January 08, 2010, 08:02:51 PM »
We got some of the pieces for the smaller whistles cut out today. I think you have to reset the saw on just about every cut. Here are the pieces in stacks of four. We'll sand the edges and make one more cut. Then we can start gluing these together\o/



The wood strips are getting used up fast to. But I think I have enough.


Wesley P
A Gismo ??? If it has a flywheel or spins and is made with small parts. I'll take one! If it makes noise, moves, or requires frequent oiling and dusting it's a better deal yet. It's especially right if its shiny and bright; but if it's dirty and dull it wont mater at all...

Offline websterz

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #9 on: January 08, 2010, 08:22:38 PM »
That is a very fine-grained wood...what kind is it?
"In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird.  Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal."
 :med:

Offline Powder Keg

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #10 on: January 08, 2010, 08:35:22 PM »
We are using Popular for the whistles and the lips where the wind comes out will be Ash probably. I like Popular because it's easy to work with. It has a pretty consistent density and almost no knots:o)
Wesley P
A Gismo ??? If it has a flywheel or spins and is made with small parts. I'll take one! If it makes noise, moves, or requires frequent oiling and dusting it's a better deal yet. It's especially right if its shiny and bright; but if it's dirty and dull it wont mater at all...

Offline NickG

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #11 on: January 09, 2010, 03:40:02 PM »
Nice 1 Wes, this is going to be really interesting, totally different from the norm!

Nick
Location: County Durham (North East England)

Offline Powder Keg

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2010, 01:19:05 PM »
Well I have all but the last three Base whistles cut out. I'll get them today. After we get all the edges sanded down, I'll measure and cut the front piece for the aperture. This will be where the wind comes out. I'm getting good at converting MM into English measurements :bugeye: Then we can start gluing them together.
Wesley P
A Gismo ??? If it has a flywheel or spins and is made with small parts. I'll take one! If it makes noise, moves, or requires frequent oiling and dusting it's a better deal yet. It's especially right if its shiny and bright; but if it's dirty and dull it wont mater at all...

Offline ronginger

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #13 on: January 10, 2010, 03:54:11 PM »
Poplar is a good choice for its nice tight grain. I am not sure Ash is a good choice for the pipe lip. They must have a very sharp and crisp edge and  Ash tends to have open grain that might make it hard to get a clean edge. Id stick with the poplar. If you want a contrasting color wood maybe Cherry.

Offline Powder Keg

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #14 on: January 10, 2010, 07:10:26 PM »
Thanks for the heads up on the Ash Ron. I'll do a couple of test pieces before I cut them all out :clap:

 :wave: :wave: :wave:
Wesley P
A Gismo ??? If it has a flywheel or spins and is made with small parts. I'll take one! If it makes noise, moves, or requires frequent oiling and dusting it's a better deal yet. It's especially right if its shiny and bright; but if it's dirty and dull it wont mater at all...

Offline Powder Keg

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #15 on: January 10, 2010, 07:27:25 PM »
I forgot the picture. Here are all 20 pipes. I think the 5 biggest ones will be mitered after they are glued togather. This will make them fit in the case.




 :wave: :wave: :wave:
Wesley P
A Gismo ??? If it has a flywheel or spins and is made with small parts. I'll take one! If it makes noise, moves, or requires frequent oiling and dusting it's a better deal yet. It's especially right if its shiny and bright; but if it's dirty and dull it wont mater at all...

Offline Dean W

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #16 on: January 11, 2010, 02:40:45 AM »
This sounds like a fun project, Wes.  Well, except that I have such a hard time with wood, you know.. 
How large is the organ when it's finished?  It looks like it would be just the neatest thing to run with a small-ish steam engine.  Kind of like a miniature calliope. 

 
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Offline Powder Keg

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #17 on: January 12, 2010, 06:54:46 PM »
I had a chance to draw up a fancy crank handle. I wanted it to look old. I'll machine this out of Brass and machine a brass hub for the big end and a wood handle for the small end. I'll make it on the CNC after work one day this week.

 :wave: :wave: :wave:
Wesley P
A Gismo ??? If it has a flywheel or spins and is made with small parts. I'll take one! If it makes noise, moves, or requires frequent oiling and dusting it's a better deal yet. It's especially right if its shiny and bright; but if it's dirty and dull it wont mater at all...

Offline BobWarfield

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #18 on: January 12, 2010, 08:50:56 PM »
This thing will be a real hoot when you get it done!

Best,

BW
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Offline Powder Keg

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #19 on: January 13, 2010, 09:54:04 PM »
Hey Bob. How have you been?

Tonight I stayed after work and made a jig to hold my crank handle. I had a couple of problems with my program. But I got it. Took about 15 min to run all togather.




I'm planing on staying tomorrow to. The crank for this is built up and I want to machine some fancy webs for the throws on the crank.

I'll try and get a video.

 :wave: :wave: :wave:
« Last Edit: January 13, 2010, 11:04:11 PM by Powder Keg »
Wesley P
A Gismo ??? If it has a flywheel or spins and is made with small parts. I'll take one! If it makes noise, moves, or requires frequent oiling and dusting it's a better deal yet. It's especially right if its shiny and bright; but if it's dirty and dull it wont mater at all...

Offline Brass_Machine

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #20 on: January 13, 2010, 10:02:58 PM »
Crank is starting to look good!

Keep it up.

Eric
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Offline NickG

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #21 on: January 14, 2010, 03:44:35 AM »
Yeah very nice  :thumbup:
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Offline PTsideshow

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Offline Powder Keg

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #23 on: January 15, 2010, 11:40:52 AM »
Thanks for the links PT. They will come in handy. I almost didn't build this. One reason being, I have never read sheet music before. Don't know the first thing about it. I'm still a little nervous as to whether I can make music or just noise :lol:

The crank shaft is made from welded up parts. I decided to make the webs a little fancier than the sketches showed. I drilled the holes in one operation then used some cap screws to hold the pieces to machine the profile. I have about 5 min into each one. Ill machine the shafts to length and champher the ends so I can get a nice weld.



There aren't many more metal parts on this thing. I have the plywood ordered and the Ash sanded down to thickness. I'm going to try and get some of the whistles glued togather this weekend.
Wesley P
A Gismo ??? If it has a flywheel or spins and is made with small parts. I'll take one! If it makes noise, moves, or requires frequent oiling and dusting it's a better deal yet. It's especially right if its shiny and bright; but if it's dirty and dull it wont mater at all...

Offline chuck foster

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Re: Hand Cranked Organ winter project
« Reply #24 on: January 15, 2010, 12:12:48 PM »
looking good wes  :thumbup:

it is nice too see projects involving metal and wood.

i will be following this project as it progresses.  :D

chuck  :wave:
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