How to move a 700 pound pipe chest??

[castaway]

I am preparing to install a 5-rank Moller organ in my home. At the moment the main chest is sitting upright, not on its side, in my garage -- all 44 by 90 inches of it -- on its 30 inch high base. (I can barely lift one end of chest!) It was moved in the upright position, mounted on two dollies, via truck.

The chest needs to be lifted up off the base, and set on its side for some repair work on the chest. But the worst is yet come. The chest must then be trucked down the hill to the front of the house, and carried back up the hill, via three flights of sidewalks and winding steps. Should I install handles on the chest? (And how?) How many men should be used? What safety precautions should I take for both the men and chest?

And I thought installing my 150 year-old tracker organ was a challenge!

[NYCFarmboy]

Re: How to move a 700 pound pipe chest??

I think your chest is larger than mine, my "swell" organ is divided into 2 separate chests...one is 3 ranks and one is 5 ranks,...what WE did was completely strip the chests as much as possible: removing EVERYTHING that was removable.




This allows you to clean everything, and removes alot of weight. It is time consuming, but it is the ONLY way I could have got the chests in place in my house organ:

Just make SURE you label where EVERY piece goes!!!!

[Jay999]

Re: How to move a 700 pound pipe chest??



As NYC suggests, strip the chest of the bottom boards and the pouch boards. Use some masking tape to identify where parts go back together....for example, as you take off a bottom board, put a piece of tape on the edge of the board and the other piece of tape on the inside of the chest. These two pieces of tape should be at the same location. Then with a marking pen, write the number 1 on each piece of tape. Then, when you get ready to put it back together, the numbers will correspond to the correct position. As the pouch boards are removed, keep the numbers on one end of each pouch board so you don't get confused about which end goes back in the same position.Just give each new part another number.</P>


In some Moller chests, the entire top board can be unscrewed and the top will come off. You will rip the old thin leather seals around the inside edges as you remove the top, but they are easily replaced with new thin pnumatic leather. If you are planning on doing some work on the inside of the chest anyway, this would be the first step in the re-assembly process.</P>


Before you attempt to lift the chest out of its bearer, go ahead and strip out as much of the internal parts as you can manage. It's best if you can spend a calm day or two, labeling all the parts you are stripping out, rather than waiting until the last hour or two before the moving men arrive. If you put yourself in a rush to get the labeling job done, you will find parts later that have no easy identity. As the moving men lift the chest up out of the bearer, put a quilt over the edge of the bearer so it will not bruise the chest rim as it comes out over the sides of the bearer.</P>


We are getting ready to move a 4 rank chest up two flights of steps, fully assembled. For this occasion, I am using 6 strong guys to do the bull work. Two on each end, plus two in the middle.</P>

[VaPipeorgantuner]

Re: How to move a 700 pound pipe chest??

Most MOller chests can be lightened by removing the racks and cock-hats (the end pieces that hold the rack boards in place. ALso remove the bottom-boards, but do this CAREFULLY if it a pitman style chest (or even more carefully if it is a duplexed pitman. Moller has (conveniently) stamped the division and rank name and a number on every pouch board in the chest. Some older Moller pitman chests have outboard relays and even the primary can be removed in many of their pitman style chests. You can strip Moller chests of some of the toe-boards even, but often the inner toe-boards are glued in place, so it is better to not remove them. As others have said, label everything you take off (I suggest using a sharpie pen writing on blue painter';s tape to do labeling).