correcting pipe speech

[jrdurgan]

I have a four rank wicks organ. One of the 97 note gedecht pipes has speech that is softer and windier sounding than its neighbors. What can I do to fix this?

Thanks in advance for your responses
J Durgan

[Pipeorganbuilder]

Check inside the toe and mouth of the pipe and see if there is any trash. Also, place the neighboring pipe in this pipes slot and see if it plays ok. This will make sure there is nothing wrong with the pipe valve below in the chest. Make sure the stopper is not leaking.

Michael

[nsa66]

I once had a similar problem on a Hohl Flute pipe. I turned the pipe upside down only to have a stomach churning moment as a very large, very hairy and very dead moth landed on my hand. Problem solved. Unfortunately with a Gedeckt things are a bit trickier because you can't simply turn the pipe upside down without removing the stopper (are you any good at retuning?) I'd just try a really good, hard blow to shift any dust in the flue, assuming you've narrowed the fault down to the pipe itself. If the mouth is cut up high enough to check the languid, make sure this is straight and not displaced - they are not always glued in place. Best to compare it to other pipes in the rank.

[myorgan]

Would a bit of compressed air help without harming anything?

Michael

[voet]

An organ I used to play had a dead note in the trumpet stop. Fortunately our sexton had also worked for a pipe organ builder, so he offered to go into the chamber and check it out. The culprit turned out to be a dead bat. We used to have an occasional bat flying around, but it never occurred to me that the little critter was the cause of the problem. Fortunately the sexton cleaned the pipe and everything functioned properly again.