I arrived home from Ecuador with a lot of ideas in my head. Some were considerations for life, other ideas were merely entertaining anecdotes, and a couple turned out to be plans of action. One such action plan was re-enrolling in school. Done. While it’s not been the smoothest time, I did it and am very glad I did. Another concept that came back was the Palapa. My most recent endeavor, in spired by travel abroad, has now become legitimate and tangable, and today it took the name of Boojum Boards and Design.. or something like that and I’ve started down the long road to shaping my own surfboards.

In November I purchased a length of balsa from the craft store and in december I finally put it together. I cut the lenth into small pieces, about 4 inches long, and then glued them up to form a small plank about 1/2 an inch wide. After the glue had set I pulled out some sand paper and massaged the ‘blank’ into my first surfboard. I held it high and touted it at home and to friends. I was now officially a shaper.

Next step up the sizes.

Now we’re into some real meat. In fact I was surprised not to find any dead animals deep in the bowls of this thing.

Once again, sure to document the whole tear down, I slowly addressed each screw and found the pieces easily came apart. I could now see the mechanics behind this whole contraption. It seemed simple enough. You pull the draws and they actuate levers, and in turn those levers lift little doors allowing air to move out through them, giving the sound you want – hopefully.

(This shows what is essentially the “valve cover” for the organ reeds. That seam along the left is a door which opens to allow air out. It is one of the pieces actuated by the draws. The taped seam on it is cracked and ineffective and needs to be replaced, however, I can’t seem find a good replacement for it. The holes that run along the spine there are for a series of small pegs. The pegs reach down to the doors on the reeds and are depressed by the keys. The system’s simplicity is remarkable.)

Down the line… the harmonics garage door

The felt here needs to be cleaned up, otherwise it looks pretty good. The reeds are all shiny and the wood on both the door and the floor is dry and solid. All I need is a vacuum cleaner.

Door Closed & Door Open

But before all that, the opening of doors, the moving of air, the creation of sound (per above paragraph), can happen the sound has got to get going in the first place and thus we dig deeper, into the reeds.
I discovered that the basic structure is on par with a 25 cent harmonica. A number of reeds all lined up and each sealed off, impervious to the air that is being pumped into the chamber below. That is until you depress on of your keys topside. This key pushes down upon a small dowel – about an inch long, if that, and rests in a tiny socket, aforementioned – and this dowel moves the small wooden slat out of the way allowing the air to rush though, in turn vibrating the reed to it’s maximum potential, just like it’s father would have liked.

Underside of “reed board” where the slew of slats sit.

A closer look – see the springs that hold the slats in place. One of these springs was off and causing problems. It was corrected. The wood down here is soft, really soft, kind of cheap, almost like a balsa. I’m curious if that’s a sound thing or a less expensive thing or a high end thing? I’m curious as to the rational behind construction material here.

Another look – quite close now. Quite simple.

The wood slat or “Air Traffic Controller.”

And finally a look inside at the reed it’s self.

*Not a lot of work detail here – this was more of an exploration day.
**The “” names given are solely my creation and may not reflect the actual names of parts.

Start from the beginning, I took the #3 black key.. A# I believe, or perhaps you know it as b-flat.

Check out the felt there. Old, stiff, broken felt – time to replace with soft and new… why not make it blue.

Ta-Da! You can’t see the hole, but there’s one there. Smooth action too.

and… Back onto the rack.

Removed and numbered the keys and then looked at the rack.

Before:

Then a little cleaning…. there that wasn’t so hard.

After:

Time to check out the keyboard. The #1 part of the instrument, inspected by everybody.

Signatures and a Date – Today I got a good idea of how old this instrument is. Can you read it? 1879.

The back side of the keys – the brass posts they sit on seem to have a little corison, but otherwise look fairly good.

Again the felt pads aren’t looking too good, but the front brass pegs look fair and those pads will clean up with out much difficulty.

The keys are simply in need of some TLC. Time to bust out the Q-Tips and start cleaning. I actually moved into cotton balls because they were less expensive and covered more area quickly.