Console, Drilling, Blower

Console, Drilling, Blower

by Allison Andrews, Parish Historian 

Next up - the new console. Wallace will design and build this for us. The original console is long gone. The one we just removed was from the 1950s.

The console case holds the keyboards (and the array of puzzling knobs) and pedal board. On the inside is a complex set of relays that signal pipes to sound when notes are played.

Pictured here is a concept sketch by Nick Wallace for the new console. The design incorporates details from the casework of other Hook & Hastings instruments of the era to "add a bit of authenticity to the console design," as David Wallace explains.

Sketch for the new console by Nick Wallace, June 2015 (not to scale)

Meanwhile, drilling of holes for the placement of pipes proceeds.

And the new blower has arrived.  This is the apparatus that breathes the air into the organ. This one is smaller, cleaner, and quieter than the 1950s model it replaces. The old blower, now a relic, has been claimed by an engineering-inclined parishioner.