Unusual Chiappa Accomp. Pipe Layout & Windchest
To keep you all updated on the progress of my Chiappa rebuild, well it’s really getting close now. Here’s a pic of how it looks to date:
I’ve recently finished making the last two new windchests, these being for additional accompaniment pipes which play with the violin register to increase the volume of the constant-play stopped and open accompaniment ranks.
The violin register accompaniment pipes comprises a rank of cellos and a rank of stopped double-mouth flutes (‘Doppelfutes’) both of the same pitch (an octave higher than the principle stopped accompaniment pipes). The flutes here (the blue ones in the pics below) came with the Chiappa and had been messed about quite extensively unfortunately and so have taken a lot of work to get right. They weren’t on this section of the instrument when I got my hands on it, but this is where they fitted best (another 7 originals now play properly as bass helpers which some of them were before, the 8th one I had to make to match).
The idea of this mixture is to increase the power of the accompaniment during the violin passages, so to help in this quest I made the 12 cellos to sound with the flutes to make a richer timbre. The 48/52 scale having no counter melody section, the accompaniment is often used for sustain notes as well as off beat chords, so these will be emphasised well (there are also accompaniment trumpets which come in with the forte register).
These flutes having a mouth at both sides did cause some head scratching in terms of layout in the short of space case, as any pipe too close in front of the mouth would spoil the speech. There wasn’t room to put the two ranks in rows, so I managed to squeeze them in alternately next to each other. It’s quite close either side of the original main accompaniment chest in the rear centre, but with careful measurement they all fit. They look good too, and form a nice visual feature at the back of the main pipe area, and like a lot of my ideas with this organ, are hopefully a bit different to all the ordinary pipe layouts out there!
The flutes are raised up quite high from the chests with long feet extensions – the original feet were all over the place, so while I was attending to these it was no problem to make them longer and all the same size. The main reason for raising them is to prevent interfering with the speech of the cellos, though they look far better raised and also make stopper adjustment easier.
As for the supporting off-note windchests, these are of my usual design, but in this case with routered channels each feeding two holes. See photos below; as always I made everything here in house, including threading the push rods, making the buttons and cutting out the plywood pallets and discs etc specially for these chests).
The next task is to complete the revoicing, repairing, re-stoppering and finishing of the 24 original constant-play accompaniment pipes. These have suffered over the years in terms of degrading finish. The photo below shows an un-touched one on the left, and a cleaned, sanded and re-shellacked on the right with the cap glued and placed correctly (many loose before).
Once the accompaniment ones are all fitted I’ll be turning my attentions to restoring the 88 original melody pipes which have just the same finish problem as above. Once these are done and fitted the organ will be playing (all 210 pipes!) though I haven’t made a new register box to control them all yet (original one is of a poor design which looks unreliable).
I’ve recently finished making the last two new windchests, these being for additional accompaniment pipes which play with the violin register to increase the volume of the constant-play stopped and open accompaniment ranks.
The violin register accompaniment pipes comprises a rank of cellos and a rank of stopped double-mouth flutes (‘Doppelfutes’) both of the same pitch (an octave higher than the principle stopped accompaniment pipes). The flutes here (the blue ones in the pics below) came with the Chiappa and had been messed about quite extensively unfortunately and so have taken a lot of work to get right. They weren’t on this section of the instrument when I got my hands on it, but this is where they fitted best (another 7 originals now play properly as bass helpers which some of them were before, the 8th one I had to make to match).
The idea of this mixture is to increase the power of the accompaniment during the violin passages, so to help in this quest I made the 12 cellos to sound with the flutes to make a richer timbre. The 48/52 scale having no counter melody section, the accompaniment is often used for sustain notes as well as off beat chords, so these will be emphasised well (there are also accompaniment trumpets which come in with the forte register).
These flutes having a mouth at both sides did cause some head scratching in terms of layout in the short of space case, as any pipe too close in front of the mouth would spoil the speech. There wasn’t room to put the two ranks in rows, so I managed to squeeze them in alternately next to each other. It’s quite close either side of the original main accompaniment chest in the rear centre, but with careful measurement they all fit. They look good too, and form a nice visual feature at the back of the main pipe area, and like a lot of my ideas with this organ, are hopefully a bit different to all the ordinary pipe layouts out there!
The flutes are raised up quite high from the chests with long feet extensions – the original feet were all over the place, so while I was attending to these it was no problem to make them longer and all the same size. The main reason for raising them is to prevent interfering with the speech of the cellos, though they look far better raised and also make stopper adjustment easier.
As for the supporting off-note windchests, these are of my usual design, but in this case with routered channels each feeding two holes. See photos below; as always I made everything here in house, including threading the push rods, making the buttons and cutting out the plywood pallets and discs etc specially for these chests).
The next task is to complete the revoicing, repairing, re-stoppering and finishing of the 24 original constant-play accompaniment pipes. These have suffered over the years in terms of degrading finish. The photo below shows an un-touched one on the left, and a cleaned, sanded and re-shellacked on the right with the cap glued and placed correctly (many loose before).
Once the accompaniment ones are all fitted I’ll be turning my attentions to restoring the 88 original melody pipes which have just the same finish problem as above. Once these are done and fitted the organ will be playing (all 210 pipes!) though I haven’t made a new register box to control them all yet (original one is of a poor design which looks unreliable).
I’ve managed to get a handful done in between the exam study I’m on with this week, though once all 44 have been cleaned, polished and lacquered I’ve the woodwork and joins of the pipes themselves to addend to, so more hole filling and re-gluing to come…
I haven’t decided on the finished appearance of the violin pipes yet. I’m siding towards sanding and re-shellacking them, and the same with the two ranks (44) of flute pipes which stand in front of the violins. These will need plenty of attention too in terms of finish and hole filling from several pipe stay attempts of the past, but also need re-stoppering.
I haven’t ruled out painting them yet however; there’s enough gold colour in there already, so perhaps the violins could be ‘Gavioli’ pink and the flutes light blue maybe with red stoppers to match the accompaniment stopped pipes. I haven’t though much about this yet; any ideas anyone? I want them to all look nice, but without making them look brand new and modern! The pipes have aquired plenty of charactor over the years, which leaving unpainted, shellac would retain.