A recent MMD mentioned Louis Suierveldt's replica 165 band organ, one
I had not heard about until then.  I know several other people, though,
who are building, or contemplating building, replicas of that organ.
And of course there is the Seabreeze replica built three seasons ago by
Johnny Verbeeck in Belgium (sadly still without the facade it deserves,
though the 1999 National Carousel Association convention will be coming
to Seabreeze this summer).

The question that always comes up, which no one has published the answer
to, is:  Exactly what octave does each of the several ranks play in?
The pitches of the individual notes are known (from the tracker scale)
as are all the crucial pipe dimensions except length (from Doyle Lane's
Wurlitzer pipe scale book).

I wonder whether Mr. Suierveldt recorded these missing data?  Johnny
Verbeeck must have them too, if he is willing to divulge them.

Also I wonder whether 165 replica builders like Howard Kohlbrenner,
K. A. Pontius, Paul West, or Mark Chester are in touch with each other
and sharing their findings?  Is any effort being made to pool orders
for such hardware as roll spools, which ought to be a bit cheaper when
ordered in quantity.  Many Wurlitzer people, myself included, could use
extra roll spools.  Doyle Lane has the old sand-casting molds, but it
might take quantity orders to interest him in having the castings made.
Right now, it seems to be more feasible to have spools machined by lathe
one at a time.

Matthew Caulfield