Woodworking.

[Chris Hobson]

Being a retired person, I've been planning doing some kind of woodwork project for a while. My workshop was in a bit of a state so that has been a starting point. So, I've got rid of a lot of junk and sorted out which bits of wood might be useful and taken the rest to the tip. Repaired a broken shelving unit, fitted a new router to the router table and made some new drawers to keep all of the bits and accessories in. Lastly I've installed much better lighting. Equipment wise I have a table saw, mitre saw, router table, band saw, two drill presses, two bench grinders, thickness planer and a variety of hand held power tools.

I have in my possession the insides of an old pedal operated reed organ. The bellows are totally shot, the keys are rather brown and chipped and quite a few of them stick. However, some time ago as an experiment, I bought two very cheap hair dryers, took out the heating elements and mounted them to the wind chest to provide some wind and managed to get a tune out of it. So my project is to design and build a case to contain the keyboard, the reed section, and a rank of stopped flutes. The flutes will be made from black plastic conduit. There will also be a tremolo unit. There are 61 keys so I will probably build several jigs so that the flutes can be sort of mass produced. I currently have one flute that I made as an experiment just to make sure that I could make one that actually produces a sound. The wind chests and the case will be made from plywood. I'm intending to use softwood for the internal construction and oak for the parts that are visible. The wind will be provided by an extractor fan, mounted so that it's blowing inwards obviously. I have already bought the new key tops, I suspect that removing the old ones will be the hard part of installing them. Hopefully I will be able to provide updates as work progresses possibly with photographs.

 

[stephenS50]

I remember doing woodwork in my old school.All my friends found it so boring buy I rather enjoy it.

 

[Chris Hobson]

At school I preferred metalwork, I went on to be an engineer. Moving into my own house meant that I had to learn the basics of shelves, door hanging and fitted cupboards. I became much more interested after watching The New Yankee Workshop on the telly. My wife bought me a couple of books based on the series and I made some of the projects in it. The organ project is a mixture of woodwork and engineering so it should suit me well.

 

[Chris Hobson]

Thinking back, school woodwork classes were a bit dull. They tended to involve woodworking techniques that were from the dark ages and progressed at a snails pace so that it took several months to produce a tie rack. There was the time when the woodwork teacher left the room for a moment and a mate decided that it would be great fun to stuff wood shavings down the front of my jumper. I responded with a wood shaving retaliation so we were in the middle of a full on wood shaving fight when the teacher came back in. We each received a whack with a specially made spanking bat, it was the woodwork shop after all.

 

[Chris Hobson]

Here is my starting point for the organ building project. At the top is the old base board with the two hairdryer fans in it. I had hoped to use them to test the unit and to see how close to concert pitch the reeds were but when I plugged them in they blew the fuse. Checking them with a meter showed that they had zero resistance. The extractor fan, bottom left, proved to be too feeble for the job but I did manage to get enough sound to compare the pitch to the digital piano. The reed organ is about a quarter tone sharp. To the right of the fan is a stopped flute that I made as an experiment. The object bottom right is the power unit from an old Dyson vacuum cleaner. I got the organ to work using my workshop vacuum as a blower so I had a light bulb moment about the vacuum in the loft. The unit is quite noisy so I will have to engineer some kind of sound deadening system for it.

 

[Chris Hobson]

More pictures:

Top:
Replacement key tops. Obviously not ivory, they are made from acrylic resin, a posh name for plastic.
Next:
The keyboard as it is now. A lot of the keys are sticking, the key tops are yellow and chipped. Quite a few of the keys have splits which I have been repairing with glue.
Next:
The underside of the keyboard showing the reeds. One of the reeds has been replaced at some time in the past.
Bottom:
Close up of the Dyson power unit.

 

[Chris Hobson]

The organ project has been temporarily sidelined as I have been dealing with a request from my daughter for some doggie agility training toys. So I have been making a seesaw and a high jump. I'll see if I can post some pics when they are finished.

 

[Chris Hobson]

Progressing with putting new key tops on. The old key tops have been quite easy to remove as the glue is pretty old. The black key had a split in it and has been glued and clamped. The key on the left has a new top glued on. Once the glue has set, the tops need a bit of filing and dressing up to make sure that they move freely and match their neighbours.

 

[Barrowman]

My word @Chris Hobson when you take on a project you do it big, I look forward
to seeing the end result - good luck.
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[Chris Hobson]

I'm sort of committed to it now that I've posted it online aren't I. I may have to abandon the flute part and just have it as a reed organ as that bit is very much an experiment so I'm groping in the dark a bit. I have it worked out in my head how I'm going to do it but only in theory.

 

[Chris Hobson]

This is great fun, both the organ and the doggy toys have now been sidelined as well. I had birthday money to spend so I've been off to Machine Mart and bought myself a lathe. I'm having to rearrange the workshop slightly and extend the main workbench to fit it in.

 

[Barrowman]

Always wanted a lathe but never got one, a bit late now to start thinking of getting it now.
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[Chris Hobson]

Are there sound reasons why it is too late to get yourself a lathe Barrowman? Mine cost £170, I got a bit knocked off as it was the display model which didn't have a box.

Here it is installed on the bench. You can see the extention on the workbench with the lighter coloured wood. It has taken me all day to extend the workbench, get the lathe bolted down and the power supply sorted out. You can see the DeWalt building site radio in the picture complete with auxiliary cable which usually has my phone on the end of it playing Spotify. It does FM and digital radio too. Tomorrow I'll be tidying up and then carrying on with the dog toys.

 

[Vonny]

Well I know you live not too far from me, so if I need any woodworking done, I know who to call 😉

 

[Merluza]

As someone who struggles to saw a straight cut I’m amazed and impressed.

 

[Barrowman]

Are there sound reasons why it is too late to get yourself a lathe Barrowman? Mine cost £170, I got a bit knocked off as it was the display model which didn't have a box.

Yep, I'm heading towards my 81st birthday. @Merluza My family don't trust me with a knife and fork now so I have no chance with a lathe.
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[Chris Hobson]

Dog toys are finished so I'm back on the organ project. Pic 1. Three stages of fettling on the valves. The left one awaiting work, middle one is all cleaned up with leather pieces cut out and ready to glue on. On the right is the completed one ready to install.

Pic 2. The first four fettled valves installed, only fifty seven more to go.

Pic 3. Here is the completed keyboard, new key tops and felt dampers installed.

 

[Barrowman]

Looks good, I'm glad it's you and not me I wouldn't have the patience.
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