Got myself a big church organ

[Freppo]

Hi folks,

Just wanna share this insane little project of installing a huge church organ in our lodge.   
A couple of weeks ago my brother called me out of the blue and asked if a wanted a church organ.
I had just watched Look Mom No Computer get one, so I thought yeah why not!..

Here's how it looked when it was in one piece in the church.



Backstory:
It comes from a local small church that was sold and repurposed into a restaurant/café.
The new owners didn't want it and they was about to go to the dumpster / recycling station with it.
But a couple of guys saved it, took it apart and put it in storage where one of them is working.
No one of them had the space, so they asked my brother if he knew someone that could take it.

The organ was made on order from the church by a local builder in 1998 and cost over 100 000 euros new.

We have a lodge on our homestead. It's not ideal, but better than the dumpster.
I plan on building a stage and do shows there in the near future.

I went to pick it up a few days ago, with the help of some friends.








Now it stands in pieces in our lodge. I've been clearing it out and cleaning for a few days.

Next week will be assembly time, as we need to be at least 6 people to do the heavy lift.
The frame needs to be on from the top onto the main part...

I'll make a new video of the assembly process next week.

/ Fredrik

[Martan]

Great score! That looks like a lot of fun/hard work. Good luck!

[jessenator]

Nice! I agree, does look both fun and like a lot of work. Looks very good from the outside, though.

Reminded me of this

although I dunno how mineral oil smoke will do good on the new plumbing 

[alanp]

Oh wow. Part of me is jealous, while the rest is reminding the first part I have nowhere to put anything like that!

There was an old book on home-DIY-ing a pipe organ, published several decades ago. The introduction claimed that pipe organs were more practical for DIY than guitar or anything else, as you could buy everything you need from a regular hardware store, no special tuning heads or strings or anything.

[BricksnBeatles]

That's absolutely wild! Since I was a kid it's been my biggest dream to buy an abandoned church with a big old pipe organ and turn it into a studio. Congrats on the new gear!

[Freppo]

Thanks everyone for the comments.
I'll keep you posted with my progress.

I was thinking about repainting it. I don't really like the colour.
But.. on the other hand I think I would like to keep it stock.
I'll definitely not add smoke and lights to the pipes haha...

But a midi interface mod would be pretty cool though.

[mjg]

That's wonderful!  I've been enjoying the LMNC videos lately, I definitely think you need the smoke machine mod. 

[diablochris6]

That's pretty awesome. It's not a color that I would naturally pick for an organ, but it kind of grows on me. Our 90-something-year-old church organist decided to retire at the end of last year, so the Hammond and Leslie speaker just sit there unused now. That Leslie speaker is just taunting me being unused, but I have no space or time for it. Word is, the organist had a Hammond M3 in his house too.