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Determining Pipe Organ Blower Size
By Carl Zwanzig

I'm starting to work on my parade organ project after leaving it
sit for a while.  The current problem is figuring out how much air
do I need, thus how big a blower.  The first version will only have
a short rank (48 notes) of a stopped flute, probably operating at
about 4-5" pressure(*).  Later versions will have more ranks.

I've seen various surplus blowers from copy machines and tape drives
in the local junk shops, they're usually good for 20-30 cfm at 10".
Is this enough?  How does one figure air consumption in general?

* I'm going to measure the mouth on the pipes to figure the
likely design pressure based of Johan Liljencrants' chart (at
http://mmd.foxtail.com/Tech/isint.html).  Of course, I'm open to
other suggestions.

z!
Carl Zwanzig



(Message sent Tue, 25 May 2004 12:55:02 -0700 (PDT) , from time zone -0700.)

Key Words in Subject:  Blower, Determining, Organ, Pipe, Size

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