ciphers

[edhorgan]

My rodgers concord 760 has a cipher:'(. Does anyone have any suggestions for self help or will i have to call a technician out? It is on the great manual and is the second "A" on the bass side of the manual... Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!!!

[arie v]

Hi,

What is cyphering? Any stop on the Great, or just one? Is there a cypher with no stops on?

Rodgers in those days used a double contact finger which touched a buss bar when keyed. Sometimes (actually older organs had their share of these problems), the metal would fatigue and the contact would kind of fall down, and touch the buss. If the cypher is on all stops/couplers etc. my guess is that is the problem. The easy way to try to get rid of the problem is to just slap the key a few times, and see if the contact wire just brakes and falls down. If that does not work, you will have to open up the console and lift the keyboards up and see if that is the problem.

AV

[edhorgan]

Hi Arie,

That was my idea as well. I got into the organ itself but did not know how to get to the contacts. Also, it is on whatever stop I pull out on the great. When i put the stop back in, the cypher stops.

Thanks,
P.T.

[quantum]

Before seeing this, I replied regarding the cipher in your other thread.

[jbird604]

To get to the great key contacts, you have to first lift the top lid and lean it against the wall behind the console, then remove the roll top by taking out the rubber bumpers that limit its backward travel, push it back far enough to lift the front end and pull it out of the track. (I'm working from memory, but I think that is the type of rolltop on this model. If not, you should be able to see how it comes out.)

After you get the roll top out, you have to swing up the stop rail. It is probably secured by a screw on each end and will have a pivot so that it simply swings up out of the way once released from whatever screws are holding it in place at the sides. Again, I'm doing this from memory and not all Rodgers consoles are put together the same way, but the concept is similar in all -- you must somehow get the stoprail lifted up and back out of your way.

Now the swell manual should simply left up and swing back revealing the underside of the swell keys. You'll see the double set of contact wires that Arie mentioned. To raise the great manual, you will have to remove two screws from underneath the keydesk that go up into the end blocks of the great. These are near the front of the console and are good sized phillips-head screws. Once they are out, the great will lift and swing back and you can inspect the offending key contact. Since there are two and only one is essential, clip out the one that is sagging. Unfortunately, you may find this trouble returning from time to time. It seems to me that once an organ develops one sagging contact it seems to get more of them. Don't know why, maybe Rodgers had a bad batch of that wire and it got used in a certain number of consoles in that era.

Put it all back together and be especially careful not to pinch yourself with the roll top. Those things are dangerous when being re-installed!

Good luck.

[edhorgan]

I decided, before I saw the above posts, to fiddle around and find the contacts. I ended up following the same steps outlined above without knowing it! :) It ended up that one of the two contacts had completely broken off on its own accord. But however, the remaining contact has no spring to it; when depressed, it just sits on the othe contact bar and doesn't come up. Do I try to solder the contact back, or have an "a- less" organ?

Thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it!
P.T.

[arie v]

Hi,

There are a couple of options here.

First, you can get replacement contacts from Rodgers.

Second, if in a pinch, you can take one contact finger from one of the top notes, and transfer it to the note that does not have any.

Any service tech that has looked into older Rodgers with some regularity, will have seen this problem. A lot of Rodgers from the early to mid 80s will have had one or more service calls on organs with this problem. For servicers it is part of our job security.

AV