Crank Organs

Back in 2003 I discovered John Smith’s Busker Organ plans on the ‘net, and thought that it would be an interesting item to make. It was certainly not a ‘fine woodworking’ project, as there is little that is critical in the construction, which uses plywood for the case, and balsa wood for the pipes. Music is stored as holes in a roll of paper, which allow air pumped by bellows to pass to each of the twenty pipes – which are just the same as church organ pipes, only smaller. It was fun to make, and I later discovered that that I had joined a community of world-wide makers of John’s little organ. You can hear it playing here

I became good friends with John, and after I retired, he persuaded me to make a version of his latest design, ‘Topsy’, which has 78 pipes, and uses the MIDI system to operate solenoids to control the flow of air from a windchest to individual pipes. Topsy is shown in the second picture. Some other constructors use card readers to store their MIDI files, but mine are held on an old Palm Vx – so the music takes up a miniscule amount of room compared with paper rolls. The third shot shows Topsy being used for a charity collection by the ladies from Inner Wheel – my wife, Avril, being in the middle.

A monkey is an essential part of performing with a street busker organ, and Avril gave me a toy version for this purpose. It just sat there however, so I eviscerated one of those singing reindeer toys, and put the mechanism inside the monkey skin, so it now waves to the audience as I play. ( I did disconnect the internal speaker that played ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’).

Before I finished the case, my grandchildren kept asking me how I was getting on, so I posted a video of me playing ‘China Boogie’ by Peter Griffiths (view it here), which explains the strange antics as I turn the handle. This was before I made the case, so some of the innards can be seen. I constructed a four-wheeled cart for the organ, and later, I added a detachable motor to operate the organ instead of the crank, but someone actually turning a handle makes a greater impression when performing in public.

Picture 4 shows the basic construction, with the crank operated bellows and reservoir, driven by the renovated wheel from an old mangle. Picture 5 shows the two sets of 22 melody pipes (each pair being tuned slightly ‘off’ each other to produce a ‘celeste’ sound). Picture 6 shows the solenoid – or pallet valves – inside the main winchest.

-- Don, Somerset UK, http://www.donjohnson24.co.uk