Chest Organ

Chest organs are named because of their appearance. Housed in a chest, or box, the small organ can be moved around and set on a table, a stool, or the floor for performances. This example houses three ranks of pipes: a stopped wood 4' (Coppel), an open wood 2' (Holzprinzipal), and an open metal 1' (Octav).

Technical description: Softwood chest, or cabinet; four iron stables for carrying staves, the staves missing; panels on all four sides missing; dovetails joining the front and side rails nicely made and still tight; front (keyboard side) stiles are let into rails with dovetail tenons, which are also pegged, the pegs visible from outside; one manual of 45 notes (C/E-c'''); naturals of one piece vertical grain fruitwood, without plating; sharps blackened oak; head 30 mm, tails 50 mm; no appreciable wear shown on playing surfaces nor new parchment hinges; simple sticker action to keyscale windchest, which rests on cabinet bottom; organ shows signs of crude but effective maintenance work, in replacing keyboard hinges, keys became misaligned; a second layer of sheep leather was applied over older leather on the pallets, table top, and toeboard bottoms; replacements were found for missing and damaged pipes; grid, measuring 155 mm x 635 mm, consists of a single piece of wood 22 mm thick, into which channels have been cut to half the thickness, the grain running from bass to treble at right angles to channels; walnut(?) sliders run between table top and toeboard bottom leather, two or three slots guiding each slider on wire pins set into the table; no toeboard bearers; original method of spacing the toeboards above and attaching the toeboards to the grid is uncertain; front rank of pipes on keyscale from A-c''' (40 pipes), receiving wind from holes burned vertically into grid channels; second rank follows same arrangement, but back rank (the 4') receives wind through long and intricate toeboard channels; toeboards of vertical grain softwood except for walnut in larger toeboard for the back two ranks; wind provided by two diagonal bellows lifted alternatively by lanyards hinging out of the treble end of the cabinet, a single leather faced wood pallet serving each bellows as a frog valve; top boards of bellows, each loaded with one stone weight, measure 300 mm x 750 mm; vertical wind trunk from bellows is 45 mm x 115 mm outside; sliders operated by player through iron trundles; back to front, they control a stopped wood 4', an open wood 2', and an open metal 1', which could be called Coppel, Holzprinzipal, and Octav, respectively; original wood pipes of softwood, un-nicked and with thin lips; windway of 4' c is cut in the block (German style voicing).