Читать книгу Practical Organ Building онлайн

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In connection with this it may here be mentioned that most of the holes bored with the brace and bits (though not the huge holes just referred to), will be scorched or charred with a red-hot iron, in order to clear them of splinters, and allow a perfectly free passage for the air which will pass through them. A few pieces of iron rod, of sizes suitable for this purpose, will therefore be required. Many of these holes will be also countersunk, that is, rendered conical at their extremity, in order to receive the conical feet of the pipes which receive from these conduits their supply of wind. This countersunk portion is also scorched or charred, and two or three conical irons will be wanted for this purpose. But we have not yet come to this. When we are ready for these irons, we can have them made by any blacksmith, or we may have put aside some stout morsels of old iron from which we ourselves may contrive to fashion them.

An important question must next be asked.

Is a turning-lathe absolutely necessary as part of the plant of our factory? We must answer this. We should be sorry to deny that a small organ certainly can be and may be built without the aid of a lathe. We know that it has been done. But it is equally undeniable that the absence of a lathe, or of access to a lathe, will necessitate the purchase of certain parts (wooden pipe-feet for instance, and rack-pins), at an outlay which will bear an appreciable proportion to the first cost of a simple and inexpensive machine. Pressed, then, to say if our workshop must include a lathe, we are bound to reply in the affirmative, explaining, in the same breath, that all the purposes of the young organ-builder will be answered by a lathe of humble character and trifling cost. We ourselves, during several years of early beginnings, used a small clockmaker's lathe by Fenn, of Newgate Street, just capable of admitting between its centres the little billet of wood ready for shaping as a pipe-foot, that is to say, about 7 inches in length, and from 2 inches down to half an inch in diameter. We still possess this little lathe, and still sometimes use it for small work. Some such simple lathe, or some lathe still simpler, being voted as necessary, the usual turning-chisels and gouges will of course accompany it, and we shall assume that our readers possess a sufficient acquaintance with the wood-turner's art to require no hints from us on the subject other than those which we shall give in regular course as we proceed. If they are fortunate enough to possess a superior lathe, with slide-rest and slow motion for turning iron and brass, they will find the machine most conducive to good and durable workmanship, and we shall not hesitate to point out, as we go on, how materially it will assist us in giving strength, firmness, and finish, to various parts of our work.