Going "spooning"?

.

Now, if anyone fancies taking up the autoharp,

and was worried about a broken finger nail,

here is an alternative!

.

.

There you go!

After dinner, when you've just polished off

that big helping of apple pie and cream,

lick the spoon.......

.......and tap out a toon!

.

Looking inside a Barrel Organ.

.

Whilst browsing the other day,

I came on this video of a movement out of a 'Flute Clock'.

It is a very good example of the workings of barrel organs.

At the very bottom, you can see the cranked bellows

pumping air up into the 'reservoir' sitting on top of it.

From here the air will be admitted to the correct pipe,

at the correct time,

by a valve being lifted open,

when a 'pin' or 'bridge' on the rotating barrel

passes under it.

.

.

Normally only one tune is played on one revolution of the barrel.

However, in this case the barrel is 'pinned' on a spiral

to produce a longer playing time.

Just thought you might like to see how they work.

.

Work continues on new Piccolo pipes.

.

"Finished those piccolo pipes?" asked Dennis.

No, not quite, but I'm getting on 'Champion'.

.

.

Now after cutting out all the blocks at the correct angles,

the drilling holes in each block,

(top block for the brass pipe and bottom block for the feed),

I had to chisel out the wind-way from the feed hole to the mouth.

(above)

Next, I was interested to see how much space I had,

from the back of these new pipes,

to the fronts of the pipes behind.

.

.

I laid a new pipe block on its side with the feed hole on the bottom,

in line with the holes in the pipe mounts.

I had a good 3/8" gap showing, and I'm hoping the new pipes

will not affect the playing of the row behind.

Next, time to cut and mount the brass pipes.

.

.

I reamed the holes in the top blocks,

to give a really good tight fit.

Brass tube cut to length with a VERY fine bladed piercing saw.

.

.

The brass tube wall was only .014" thick (thin?)

Here they are all laid out ready for assembly (glue).

.

.

I tried 'voicing' all of them in turn and had several at the high end,

that refused to 'speak'.

The 1/16" ply seemed a bit thick,

and the stream of air was blowing too high

over the top of the upper lip.

I changed the ply for 1/32" beech veneer

and that worked well on these high notes.

.

.

I cut 13 pieces of veneer so I may use it on all the pipes.

I'll see how they sound before deciding.

Now comes the most difficult part.

Gluing them all up.

Oh, yes.

The wooden spoons (nice beech dowel handles)

are cut into short pieces, hole bored in the centre,

and a taper turned to fit the pipe mounts.

.