Matt's Journal

Will has a knack for handiwork that I lack. When I have spare time I write, or read. When he has spare time he works on things with his hands. He’s done more projects on his car than I can count. And he rebuilt a reed organ.

He found it in a secondhand shop when he was in high school. He bought it for $10 and hauled it a mile home on a dolly with his friend Mattias.

After removing the spiders he brought it into the house. Pumping it emitted dust but only a discordant sigh.

He pulled out all the reeds and cleaned the holes. He removed the keys and fixed the valves underneath so that they didn’t leak. In a week he had a playable organ.

Then he tore it down, intending to do a complete and correct restoration. But college intervened. For 3 years it sat in a corner of our den — a wooden hulk and three boxes of parts.

Now he’s back, and he’s put it all together again with help from old pictures he found on a iPad he used for school and then put away.

He picked up re-felting the keys from where he stopped years ago.

He remounted the couplers on the “rollerboard”. What a job identifying all the parts.

The organ now plays and sounds pretty good. The stops need to be hooked up to the knobs so they work. The couplers have to go in. Then the panels have to go on again.