WURLITZER STYLE 146 BAND ORGAN RESTORATION PROJECT (Part 3)
by Dr. Bill Black

The restoration project began in October of 2000. This series will mostly be a presentation of the photos that were taken during the restoration process. We wonąt go into great detail in descriptions since the basic restoration process is similar to that described in the 105 restoration series.

PHOTO A - The trombones have been cleaned and new shellac finish applied. Look closely and you will see the organ reveal a secret......the serial number.

PHOTO B - A closeup of the serial number....3673. This is always valuable information to an organ owner. Knowing this number allowed us to discover the shipping date for the organ from the Wurlitzer factory and to where it was shipped.

PHOTO C - The trumpets have been cleaned and new shellac finish applied.

PHOTO D - This is the unrestored rank of stopped flutes that is located on the windchest directly behind the trumpet rank. They are in good shape and needed only a cleaning, a new finish and the stoppers releathered.

PHOTO E - This is the small violin rank that is positioned above the bell unit and is mounted on the case rather than the windchest. The view in the photo is from the back. The nipples provide for hose connections for the wind to blow the pipes. Note in the photo that the tuning slides are on the back of the pipe rather than the front. In building pipes I learned the hard way why they are on the back. If they are on the front of the pipe, when the organ front is attached to the organ and here is any part of the facade close to the tuning end of the pipe, it shades the tuning slide and the pitch is thrown off.

PHOTO F - This is the melody violin section of the back row of pipes on the windchest. Note that two of these pipes are missing on the right side in the photo.

PHOTO G - This is another view of the back rank of pipes. There was a total of seven pipes which were not original to the organ. These non original pipes are not shown in the photo but would be seen on the right side of the photo.

HOTO H - This closeup shows the pipes used to replace the incorrect pipes. We were fortunate enough to find original Wurlitzer pipes in Mikes box of extra pipes which were correct for this application except one. We could not come up with the one missing accompaniment pipe. So, I made a pipe which is the correct dimension.

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Dr. Bill Black is one of the nation's most knowledgeble Wurlitzer band organ experts. He has made recordings of many band organs and other mechanical music machines which are available for purchase in our Gift Shop .