to felt, or not to felt? that is the question

[Guest]

Hi All,

My first post here; excited to discover the forum and the opportunity to Hammorak :->

I am half way through a de-foam on my 1964 A-100. Seems like I caught it just before the rot set in, with only 20 or so repairs in the lower manual and a bit of cleaning up to do. The upper manual should be a lot less (i hope) as it had just a few dead tones.

Thinking about reassembly, what is the consensus on not replacing the foam with felt and just leaving it bare?

I read that the felt/foam was actually not at all effective at it's intended purpose - keeping out dust and dirt.

thoughts please!

Bill

[torea]

Welcome to the forums!

If you got it open, you might as well put some felt in there. It's not too expensive, and I don't believe it's all that hard to do. But I'm encouraging you because I know I eventually have to do it too and want pictures to look at before I dive in :P

[wagonman76]

I did the defoam on my T-422 earlier this year. Thankfully mine had not turned to goo, it was just a crumbly mess.

From what I discovered on mine, the foam has 2 functions in different places. The foam on the side cover plates was to keep out most dust from the key contact area. The foam on the bottom cover plate was to keep the little wires in their grooves of the retaining strip, and keep them from getting knocked around and pinched when the organ got jostled around.

I cleaned off my old foam residue by drowning it in a layer of Goo-Gone for about 10 minutes. Then I went to Ace Hardware and bought 2 "felt blankets" for about $4 each. They have an extremely sticky back and the thickness was right. I cut them up and used them for both the side plates and bottom cover plate.

For some pics of mine, here is the link to the thread.

http://www.organforum.com/forums/sho...fter-defoaming