Busy Days

On Wednesday afternoon we greeted another delivery from A. R. Schopp. Pipes and swell shades, mostly. Then on Thursday, while we were placing the Swell and Great reeds, the limestone for the new altar, baptismal font, and ambo arrived. It rained hard for most of the day, one of the busiest days inside the church of the entire project. 

Another truck from A. R. Schopp arrives and is unloaded. 

Big pipes spread out on the pews.

Pipe trays and assorted larger pipes gently laid out.

In the foreground: swell shades. 

In the meantime, the Jerusalem limestone for the altar arrived.

Getting it just right.

Limestone from beneath the Old City of Jerusalem.

Our new baptismal font.

Disassembling the scaffolding after installing the limestone altar top.

Swell: L-R, Waldhorn, Oboe, Vox Humana.

Swell Reeds: Oboe, Waldhorn, Cornopean

Chuck Gibson climbing up to work on the 32' Diapason. (just kidding)

Cool hooks.

Trombone, Tromba and the 16' Violone with pipes
mitered over - the ceiling in the organ is only 15'. 

Top of the Swell Cornopean. The pipes on the left
are harmonic (that's why their resonators are longer.)

In the front of the Great - bits of various ranks are in.

Work continues - focus on winding

Collars, flanges and elbows are the main event currently as the windlines are constructed. The swell and about half the great are done. We are running ahead of schedule and anxious for the metal pipes, choir chests, facade toe-boards and swell shades to arrive!

The church these days. Note our new altar
on the right (temporary altar is behind it.)

The chimes are installed!

In the blower room. That's a big Zephyr.

Supports for some tall pipes.

Bourdons. Long feet to clear the mouths of the pipes behind them.

Looking across the enclosed Great. Offsets for the
16' Trombone and 16' Cello are on the right.
Through the door is the double enclosed Choir.

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.