[ Ref. 090704 MMD, "Seek Brass Flat Wire for Organ Barrel Pins"
 [ Serge Robillard wrote to Craig:

> Hi Craig, Thanks for your prompt reply. I believe that the
> attached photos are self-explanatory.
>
> I have a long experience in clock repair but since I'm not
> a musician it is extremely difficult to determine the melodies
> pinned on the existing cylinder.  Several bridges and notes are
> missing and cylinder surface is quite damaged.  I did a new
> cylinder made of poplar and my next step is to pin six of the
> melodies published in the book by Arthur W J G Ord-Hume.  One
> of the melodies recommended in the book is "La Marche du Roi".
> Is that melody suitable for my clock which is dated around 1800?
> Can you recommend to me other melodies having a lecture of
> approximately 25 seconds?
>
> On the existing cylinder, I have measured few note bridges and
> the dimensions are approximately 1.50 mm wide by 0.75 mm thick.
> I understand that the wire could be smaller.  I possibly made
> a typing error when I first published my message.
>
> If you need more information, please let me know.
>
> Regards, Serge

Serge,  I thought this organ looked familiar.  We discussed your
clock about 18 months ago.

I'd measure the other pins.  They are more likely to be something
like 0.040 inches by 0.020 inches.  One way to make the pins is to
buy 0.040" wire and sand/file it down to 0.020".  The original way
(I think) is to take round wire and extrude it between two hard metal
rollers to flatten it down to 0.020" thick.

I think you need to start with 0.025 or 0.030 diameter wire to make
it come out right.  It also gets longer so you can't just make the
cross-sectional area the same.  What you end up with is a piece of wire
that is flat on the top and bottom and slightly rounded on both sides.
It's the same way they make those elongated pennies.

In the picture you sent, it looks like someone tried to re-pin the
barrel and used the wrong size wire.  I've marked the ones that are
wrong -- they look like they might even be steel instead of brass.

And I wouldn't give up on the original barrel.  If you've started to
make another barrel, it's sort of late to be telling you that but I'm
pretty sure that the original barrel would still work.

The problem is likely to be the tuning of the pipes and the alignment
of the pins.  The pins on your barrel look terribly out of alignment.
If even one pipe is wrong, you'll have a hard time making it sound
right.  Remember, the pipes are not tuned chromatically.

I did a clock last year that was a little larger than yours.  It
sounded terrible at first, but when I got the barrel aligned and the
pipes tuned correctly, it was pretty nice.

If you call me some time I'll play it for you.  (Besides, pinning
a new barrel is a _lot_ of work and it's very difficult to place the
pins in exactly the right places.  Half an inch of travel represents
one second.)

Do you have a tuner device?  Can you make a list of the pitch of each
pipe (pipe number, note +/- cents) and send it to me?  Measure the open
pipes separately from the stopped pipes and tell me which ones play
together.  From that I can probably verify the tuning by making a graph
of the relative pitches.

Regards
Craig Smith

P.S.: By the way, I'd also suggest that you do _not_ want to take the
pinion gear off from the end of this barrel.  It is _very_ hard to get
it back on correctly.