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Can anyone advise me regarding Klann electric pipe valves getting sluggish upon release as they age?
Almost half the valves in my organ are 40-year-old Klann electro-mechnical units. While most of them still function as new, a few of them can be sluggish in closing upon release of the note, mostly in the treble and mostly when the weather gets cold and dry. These valves are actually nicely designed and well-made. They have their own frame with a cork gasket that attaches to the toeboard and acts as the valve seat.
I believe that the problem is the pivot pin. They have oxidized over time (since they are apparently not stainless steel) and this causes some friction in the pivot. When a unit becomes troublesome, I stretch the return spring to increase the tension (which can be tricky, because the spring tends to pull loose from it upper connection during manipulation and is almost impossible to re-attach). If this is not enough help, I then lubricate the pivot with a tiny paintbrush and Hammond organ oil. Sometimes I even increase the "travel" for the purpose of giving the valve further to go and thus more "momentum" upon release.
While this is generally successful, and the same valves rarely malfunctionagain once thus treated, it is not 100%. The top octave is especially troublesome when one plays a note that has not been touched for many months and it just keeps on playing until you hit ita few more times to loosen it up. Moreover, the chest is about as compact as it can be and still hold the pipes, so working inside this chest is extremely difficult and removing and replacing even one valve would be a nightmare.
The ideal solution would be todisassemble this part of the organ andoverhaul the chest with all-new valves. But the whole purpose of this post is to find ways to avoid that and still keep this chest playing reliably for another 40 years.
Okay, your turn . . .
[:S]
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