Taking apart 1970's electronic home organs

[tinkerer]

Hey there.

I'm interested in two scenarios of picking up and transporting home bulky home organs such as Electone A55 etc, with minimal cost & manpower:

1) non-functioning / bad shape, for scrap parts, may cause damage to irrelevant parts / enclosure
2) functioning, better not cause damage ;-)

For each scenario, the reply to this might differ:
How easily and quickly is such an organ typically dismantled?
And how much less bulky and heavy will the parts that come of that be? Can I get them into the trunk of a small car? Alone? And up stairs?

Regards,
- tinkerer

[Organfella]

You could rip something like the organ you mention apart in an hour - depends on how destructive you want to be. The innards weigh about equal to the cabinet and should fit easily into the boot of a medium sized car. Again, if you dismantle all the innards, it will be easy to load by one person. Even the shell of the cabinet could be loaded by one person, but not into the boot. For that you will need a small trailer or pick-up, but if you have that, why bother dismanlting it when it can be transported in one piece.

I have loaded such specimens single handedly on to the back of a pick-up but one tends to sweat a little with the effort and a certain amount of knack is called for. Getting the organ closer to the transport vehicle (if transported whole) might require some kind of dolly.

After all that - if its the parts you're after, for re use, consider the wisdom of the effort for parts that are in excess of 40 years old and likely on their last legs anyway. If it is the cabinet you're after, go for it!

Hope this helps.

Nico

[KC9UDX]

My Lowrey was loaded into the trunk of a mid sized Cadillac by two people. It's the same size as most spinets and weighs considerably more than a 1970s transistorised spinet will. But these are spinets. I've lifted 1970s spinets into cars by myself.

[andyg]

An A55? TI know you're only giving an example but that's about the least bulky spinet organ I can think of and would be a 1 person job to get that into an estate car (station wagon for you!). You'd probably get it into a larger hatchback and most medium size MPVs. A small set of piano wheels or a home made trolley is all you need (mine was originally used for getting beer crates on and off a ship and it sort of came home with me after work one day..... they had loads!) I just bonded some rubber car mats onto the top and it did the job for years, shifting many organs and leslies around to concerts.

Parting out oldies like this for sale? Probably not worth it. Those in the know will be aware that such parts are easily obtained free by picking up a model the same or similar to theirs. There are no doubt a few models that you could make a few bucks out of, but would it be worth the time and effort?