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Serving the Streetsville and Meadowvale communities since 1836.

Phoenix Organ Installation Diary at Streetsville United

At a special congregational meeting held December 15, 2002 the congregation of Streetsville United Church approved the purchase and installation of a Phoenix PD-351 Digital Organ to replace its current Keates Pipe Organ with some components dating back to 1920. This diary will attempt to log the progress of the organ's construction and installation during the spring of 2003.

Monday, March 31, 2003

Speaker Wiring in a 127 Year Old Building

Yesterday (March 30) a group of skilled volunteers gathered to install the speaker cabling for the new organ. While most of the speakers will reside in the existing pipe chambers at the front of the balconies or behind the current Great organ pipes at the back of the Choir Loft, the new organ also includes two antiphonal speakers to be installed at the rear of the balcony. Of course, these presented the greatest challenge and necessitated a visit to our seldom visited attic above the sanctuary ceiling. Rob Butterworth ventured up there only to find a large open space, readily navigable as long as one walks along the 2x4 strapping installed over the actual ceiling beams. It had obviously been a pigeon habitat; we also knew that squirrels or some other animal had tended to make a meal of standard cabling as they had rendered a suspended microphone stand inoperative due to their appetite (that suspended microphone was removed during this activity).

Keeping Nature at Bay: So it quickly became apparent that we needed to have the antiphonal speaker cables enclosed in metal conduit for their entire length. Rob and Bernie Brennenstuhl installed two runs, from each of the respective pipe chambers to the respective rear balcony walls. Locating holes through the tops of the pipe chambers proved to be the most difficult task; we were aided on the south side by an existing hole to facilitate the current organ's Swell operation. In the picture on the right you see the back end of the north conduit run leading down to the north rear balcony wall. While up there they also installed chicken wire to prevent pigeons from entering via a vent at the peak of the church front; hopefully this will reduce the problem the pigeons created on the sidewalk leading to the original sanctuary entrance.

Detuning the Current Organ: On the left is Dave Faulkner installing the antiphonal speaker cable via the south pipe chamber (as he detunes the current pipe ranks by standing amongst the Swell Division pipes). From each of the pipe chambers we also installed 8-wire cables for the main organ speakers: four in the south pipe chamber for the new organ's Swell Division; three in the north pipe chamber for the new organ's Choir Division (2) and Pedal Division woofer (1). An additional (longer) cable was also run up to the north pipe chamber; it will then go via the current organ's blower room to the current windchest at the rear of the choir loft where it will feed the speakers for the Great Division. These cables run down via shafts visible under the respective balconies to the Heritage Hall suspended ceiling where they will then run across and be fed back up to the new organ's console. One side effect -- we may have detuned some of the current pipes while contorting ourselves around the pipes to reach the openings and feed the cable.

So we now await the end of Sunday's service when the now slightly detuned current organ will be turned off and removed. We intend to inventory the various pipe ranks and make the parts available for sale via the Internet. Our thanks to Rob, Bernie, Dave Faulkner, David Penty, Les Cunningham, Larry Abela and various Scouting sons who all contributed to this effort at no expense to the church other than materials. Also thanks to Peter Mara who not only advised us of the attic's existence and foibles but also arranged to acquire and deliver the conduit along with appropriate tools.

Posted 3/31/2003 06:33:00 p.m. by Jim Courtney

Tuesday, March 25, 2003

Console Update and Speaker Cabling

With drawstops installed and the pedal board attached, we are approaching the final stages of the console assembly. Remaining to be installed are the upper panel containing the tabs and operator display as well as the 17 toe pistons to be installed above the pedal board. Then completion of installation of the electronics, including both the sound boards and the amplifiers. First notes should occur over the weekend or early next week.

A team of Streetsville United members tonight scoped out the speaker cable installation. Now when doing such a chore it always helps to have a couple of people who have experienced the various nooks and crannies of the church building when doing electrical work and network cabling. We found the blower room -- to the rear of the north pipe chamber (on the right from a seat in the sanctuary) only accessible from the 1950 Office Extension roof -- and the open space between the sanctuary ceiling the the sanctuary roof. Both these are contributing to making the installation of hidden wiring much easier.
Posted 3/25/2003 10:24:00 p.m. by Jim Courtney

Thursday, March 20, 2003

Looking More Like an Organ Console

With the keyboard, thumb pistons and drawstop panels installed, the console is starting to take shape. Note also the expression pedals in place; the foot pistons are yet to be installed. In a separate process, Don has already "burned" the pipes into the digital memory such that the electronics can now be inserted (behind the keyboards). Sound should start coming out in the next week or so. Speaker cables are being delivered tomorrow (Friday 21 Mar) in anticipation of an installation crew, comprising church members, starting some preparatory work this weekend.

Don't concern yourself with the colour tones; this is the result of learning to use digital cameras in fluorescent lighting.
Posted 3/20/2003 09:30:00 p.m. by Jim Courtney

Saturday, March 08, 2003

Temporary Repairs to the Current Organ and Staining

Our current pipe organ has not been used for the past four weeks due to a continuous high pitched whine when the blower is turned on. Turns out that the dry air associated with the extended cold weather of the past month has caused many pipe organs in southern Ontario to have dried up the wood in windchests to the point where attachments to the wind chest, such as the stop solenoids, can easily come loose and cause errant activity such as a "permanently open" pipe. In any event Jim Anderson from Phoenix came by, identified the offending pipe and removed it. But the remainder of the rank (a 2' Piccolo) also is not terribly voluminous when the keys are pushed; so it appears other pipe attachments within this rank are not working properly either. In any event we will operate with a 12 rank organ for the next few weeks until we take delivery of the Phoenix organ. Good thing we bought that new concert quality Yamaha piano last year to keep our music going during the last four Sundays.

Jim also reported that the new console staining was completed yesterday; we hope to have a picture early next week (update 11/3/2003 - see picture at left). In digital organ construction it turns out that preparing the console for accepting the electronic components is 80% of the work; especially when there are high quality standards in the final appearance of the console. They hope to have it producing "first notes" within a couple of weeks.
Posted 3/08/2003 12:30:00 p.m. by Jim Courtney