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MMD > Archives > August 2019 > 2019.08.10 > 01Prev  Next


Restoring a Bijou Orchestrone
By Carl Wright

When I got my Bijou about 40 years ago it did not play; someone had
taken it apart.  I worked on it and made a new gasket between the
valves and reeds.  It has been 30 years and so I just do not remember
everything but it still played too many notes.

After five years I was just about to give up on the Bijou.  I tried one
last thing and took off one side of the wood where the roll goes over
the 20 note holes.  I found out the wood had cracked between 5 of the
note channels and that is why it played more notes at times.  I repaired
the channels and replaced the 1/16" wood and the Bijou was now playing.

After seeing Owen Christiansen's question about the Bijou I started
looking at the web and found the  "Organette Music Repository" web site
where I found the tuning scales that I have listed below.  

http://www.organettes.com/ 

I then looked at my Bijou and found every other note was the same down
to the 10th note and it reversed back up the rest of the notes.

I hope this makes sense and I have listed below the way my reeds are in
my Bijou.  I do not know if my Bijou is right but I have enjoyed the way
it plays for last 30 years.

Ref. http://www.organettes.com/scales/home 
On the "Organette Music Repository" web site "Tuning Scales"
page it has the reeds arranged:

G#,C#,D#,F#,G#,A#,C,C#,D,D#,E,F,F#,G,G#,A#C,C#,D#,F

On my Bijou the keys are arranged:

G#,D#,G#,C,D,E,F#,G#,C,D#,F,C#,A#,G,F,D#,C#,A#,F#,C#

I do not know if my Bijou is right but I have enjoyed the way it plays
for the past 30 years.

Carl Wright


(Message sent Sun 11 Aug 2019, 01:42:33 GMT, from time zone GMT-0700.)

Key Words in Subject:  Bijou, Orchestrone, Restoring

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