Restoring a Reed Organ - Part 10: Fixing the Splinter

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As mentioned in a previous installment, we learned the hard way that Mason and Hamlin made it difficult to separate the bellows board from the bottom of the wind chest.  They glued that sucker on, and good! I'm sure this provided an excellent seal, but many other manufacturers simply used a leather gasket and some screws (or so I'm told).  We tried as carefully as possible to remove the board, but we ended up with a signficant large splinter coming away from the windchest and several smaller ones as well.  The bottom of the chest is pictured below, with the damage.


Needless to say, we were feeling a bit discouraged, and quite a bit like butchers.  I was afraid to go onto the Reed Organ discussioin page to ask for help as I thought maybe the Reed Organ police might come and confiscate this wonderful instrument from the hands of the Philistines.  I quietly emailed Rodney Jantzi, who encouraged us and gave us some advice on pushing forward.  As I said before, he is a really nice guy!  He suggested that we not re-glue it later, but fasten it and seal it with a leather gasket. 

You can see below the large splinter after we removed it from the bellows board and prepared to reattach it to the bottom of the wind chest.


I should say also that Dad is not one to be stopped by small inconveniences and he was confident it could all be made right.  We reattached and glued the large splinter as well as several smaller ones.



Then we clamped both the chest and the board so that they fasten firmly and dry.  I should further add that Dad is one of those guys who has several dozen clamps just kicking around the workshop, so gluing things is never a problem for him.  He is looking pretty satisfied at his handiwork, here.






Here it is the next day.  I also have some photos of the bellows board, but I think they are on another camera.  We subsquently sanded both carefully, and did some sanding to clean up the exhausters as well.  I will post those pictures when I get them off that other camera.  It worked out pretty well, I think.


And since we are highlighting the "hall of shame", we also decided it was time to glue and clamp that sub bass reed cell I cracked earlier as well.


It all worked out pretty well!

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