The Console Arrives

This morning the console and the relay arrived. The whole install crew was on hand - that's a total of 9. 

Fr. Rooney, Pastor of Saint Mary Church
 pitching in getting the relay out of the trailer.

The the outer panels of the console are taken off to
reduce its weight. Those moving the console were
instructed to pull their belt buckles to the side to
 avoid scratching the wood.

 

And into the church.

Dr. William Hamner seated at the console.
Ain't she purdy!

More Photos from Week 1

Some nice photos taken during the past week:



Installation - First Week

Here are some photos from the week just completed. Everything that came Monday was up in the chamber by the end of Friday - amazing! Since we are bringing everything in through the choir opening, the choir chests still remain to be delivered on the second truck along with the metal pipes. I'll try to get some pictures of the actual hoisting of those chests. 


We also got the main blower in place and wired up. The booster blower for the Tuba (looks like we are shooting of 17" of wind) still needs to be set in place and wired. The console comes tomorrow!!!


By the way, you can click on the pictures to look at the full-size version. Sorry if some are blurry, distorted and/or 'noisy.' They were taken with my cell phone!

Chest for Great Dolcan/Celeste and 'Cello/Celeste 

Minor Bourdon (aka Lieblich Gedekt).

In the enclosed Great. Mark Scholtz is standing in the door to the rear Swell.

The Swell Mixture. 

Limits of space made us put this Mixture on two levels. You gotta love electric action for the crazy things you can do if chamber space is an issue.

The unenclosed Great showing large open and stopped wood pipes. 

To the left is part of the main wind trunk standing on end.

The enclosed Great starting to be assembled.

Pretty pipes!

The Swell reeds - Cornopean, Waldhorn, Oboe and strings.
Two chests side-by-side.

A. R. Schopp's fine craftsmanship.

Looking out the Great.

The view from the scaffold. 

The chain for hoisting is in the middle and the opening of the Great is visible. Fortunately, there's a huge beam exposed on all four sides directly over the scaffolding and Choir tone opening. We tied a strap around the beam and hung a chain fall (a geared pulley) from it. Works like a charm!

Hoist away!

Another photo from yesterday's truck unloading.

We got a great write-up this morning in the local paper, the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star. You can view it at http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2010/092010/09142010/57519

Laid out on the backs of pews are some windchests.  A good-sized chest is on the left and some smaller chests are on the right (I think two of them are for a 5 rank mixture.). 

Another view of the [liturgical] north side of the church where things have been set.

First chest is up. Front of the swell division. Some of the install team is peaking out the tone opening. You can also see our new crucifix, now complete. 

Up in the swell now. Here's that chest up close. It's for the 8' Horn Diapason and a 4' Octave.

Here's the same chest again and an offset chest for the bottom 12 pipes of the 16' Minor Bourdon. 

Organ Delivery Day!

Yesterday the chests, reservoirs, two ranks of wooden pipes, the main blower and other assorted items arrived About 30 parish volunteers help unload the truck over a period of about 2 1/2 hours.

Here are two of our choir members carrying in a bourdon pipe.

Here comes the blower!













Things are starting to pile up.

An assortment of pipes: Bourdons and Melodias. Some of the bourdons have been restored from an older instrument.







The organ install team and the organ viewed from the organ chamber. Now we just have to get everything up that scaffold!

Next week the console and the relay arrive, then a few weeks later the 3000 metal pipes and the swell shades (all 5 sets!).

Putting up the Cross

Today our sculptor Thomas Marsh came down and we installed the cross for our new crucifix. Tom brought the corpus (image of Christ crucified) that he is sculpting to make sure the attachment points on the cross are in just the right place. 

After we put up scaffolding and tied a pulley to the beam, about eight strong men hoisted the 600 pound cross into place while another five kept it from spinning or swinging.

Yesterday, we got a chance to see the inside of the organ room. Here the guys are installing the cement board to the side wall of the Swell division. Today, the interior partitions started going up, including the frame of the inner swell shades for the Choir division.

This was a couple of weeks ago when the cast stone blocks were being lifted into position on top of the rear wall of the organ chamber.

The Organ

Our builder is the firm of Robert William Wallace of Virginia. In May, Dr. William W. Hamner, Jr., the tonal director for the project, took these photos of pipe work and others items being manufactured at A. R. Schopp's Sons, Inc. in Alliance, Ohio. Bill has designed us an amazing spec and the folks at Schopp do incredible work. 

8' Cornopean (Swell). The photo flash made the resonators look like brass, but they are 50% tin - 50% lead.

16' Major Bass. 

4' Octave (Choir). The drill is set there so you can get a sense of the size of the pipes/chest.

Swell shades being made (laminated).

A electric action chest top board turned upside-down and being wired up.

Church Interior

Here are some photos of the interior church renovation.

First, this is the wall behind the altar. We had it dismantled and rebuilt with these openings, behind which will be the organ in a newly built chamber.

The black structures are the steel support for a decorative reredos-like facade. This will include 28 pipes from three stops: Double Dulciana 16, Double Diapason 16, (Pedal) Diapason 8. These pipes will be in flamed copper.

Here you can see our new ceiling and recessed lighting. Our altar furnishings and Kawai grand piano are huddling under plastic while work is being done.

The view from the altar. The main floor of the church is now porcelain tile, replacing wall-to-wall carpet. The acoustics have improved dramatically. We also will have new pews (cushion free!) and new HVAC.

More Console Photos

The right side stop jamb. Don't worry, the draw knob nameplates haven't been glued on yet. The Division nameplates, (GREAT and CHOIR in this photo) are divisional cancels, i.e. when you press them, the stops for that division are all cancelled (turned off.)

Closeup of the stop draw knobs. You can just make out the colored rings on the outer edge of some of the name plates. They indicate which stops are doubly enclosed and in which enclosure. The colored rings were inspired by the colored beveled edges of the knob plates of the Cavaillé-Coll organ in St. Sulpice in Paris. Pretty cool idea, I think!

The relay - built by Peterson.

The Console

Here are the latest photos of the console of our soon to be installed organ. We're going for an English style two-tone look.

Here are the right toe studs. There will be one more stud added to the second row.