Restoration of a Very Early French Harmonium: Wadding!

2 ply rug yarn. 900 yards!

Making wadding is one of the aspects of harmonium restoration that scares off many people. I'm dense enough to try it because nobody told me I couldn't do it. I started with a 900 yard cone of rug yarn (80% wool/20% nylon), used for weaving rugs. Add some very soft lavender colored split suede leather and mercerized cotton thread and I was good to go.

 

The purpose of wadding is to form a gasket that seals the windchest. The upper part has the reeds and action, and the lower part the reservoir. This enables the instrument to keep the air in the system so it can be played. The upper chest with the reeds is hinged in the front and is lowered on to the valve board. There is a gap of about 3/8” that the wadding fills. There are also partitions between each set of reeds that have wadding seals as well. 

The

Cotton thread for sewing

Cutting the strips of leather evenly and carefully is important so you don't get any irregularities in the finished product, and so that all edges meet nicely.

 

I made a rack for sewing the wadding in 4' lengths, more than the width of the organ side to side. I knew I'd probably have some left over but that's better than not having enough. 

Cross section

The first step is to wind the yarn between the two dowels, stretching it as you go. I started off doing 50 strands but decided that wasn't enough so I jacked it up to 80. That's where most of the 900 yards of yarn went. The reason for stretching is so the yarn will tighten up when the finished wadding comes off the rack and it will expand some to fill the leather tube.

The sewing rack with yarn stretched.

After stretching the yarn I started sewing, making sure the edges meet squarely. It took about 1.5 hours to sew a 4 ft length. I made eight and definitely had some left over.

36 ft of wadding!

After the sewing was done I glued the wadding, seam down, over the location of the original wadding and used duct tape in a few places to hold it still while the glue dried.

 

I didn't feel that the 20% nylon content would compromise the wool at all, and it didn't. Others have used a similar blend with good results. The most important thing with wadding, with this being my only experience in making it, is don't rush and don't be nervous. The world won't come crashing in around your ears if it doesn't work the first time. Be deliberate and use good materials and you'll be fine.

Restoration of a Very Early French Harmonium: The Wind System Part 3: The Valve Board

The top of the valve board after stripping the neoprene gasket

I was going to cover both the valve board and the wadding in this post but it became clear that discussing them separately would work better. 

 

The valve board sits on top of the chest to which the reservoir is attached. Its function is to hold the valves that open each stop, making it the conduit for air to be forced through the reeds. When a valve is open the reeds for that stop can sound when the key is played.

 

As with other parts of the wind system cracks were present. I used my Japanese pull saw to widen and even out the cracks so I could splice in wood. When making a splice it is important to use the same or a similar wood, in this case a softwood such as spruce or pine. Pine was what I had at hand so that worked well. I glued in the splices, let them dry overnight, and used a small plane to bring the edges down to flush with the board on both sides. Then I shellacked the underside of the board. 

The overarching concern in the wind system is that it must be as airtight as possible. Any leak of air, however small, can compromise the function of the instrument when it is played. When looking for leaks I use a stethoscope so I can hear air escaping. Leaks can happen if a valve is not sealing properly, or a corner of a piece of leather is not glued down tight.

The underside of the valve board showing cracks

widening cracks before splicing

The valve board with splices

Restoring the valves was not difficult. I used two layers of lambskin, the top being thinner and dyed red, a traditional color for stop valves. I cleaned and polished all metal parts and reinstalled the valves. Each valve has a heavy spring to hold the valve closed until it is opened when a stop is opened.

The concern about air leaking is true with wooden parts of the wind system. A crack must be sealed so that air does not escape. The usual method of dealing with cracks is to determine if the crack can be closed by gluing and clamping, or if it must either be filled or covered with a leather seal. Wide cracks such as those I encountered here were beyond gluing and clamping.  It's a good idea to seal a filled crack with a leather strip if possible.

Restoration of the valve board complete

An unrestored valve with new leather

A valve re-covered with new leather

 In the next post I'll tackle one of the things that harmonium restorers dread the most--making new wadding!

Restoration of a Very Early French Harmonium: The Wind System Part 2

The wind system of a harmonium does not use bellows cloth, the rubberized canvas used in suction instruments. The purpose of a wind system in a suction instrument is to keep air out. In a pressure instrument the purpose is to keep air in. The wind system of a harmonium is somewhat like that of a pipe organ on a much smaller scale.

A leather gusset on the reservoir.

The wind system employs leather gussets that allow the reservoir and feeders to compress as air is pumped into the reservoir.  The leather used is very thin lamb or goat skin, no more than 1 mm in thickness.

The feeders showing the wooden ribs 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The traditional covering in harmoniums, especially French instruments, is a blue kraft paper.  Before the convenience of synthetic dyes which can reproduce any color found in nature (and many that are not) indigo was used to dye the paper. Originally this was simply to dress up the work and cover the wide glued edges of the leather, but builders soon found that the indigo acted as a natural insect repellent.

 

The reservoir leather done.

Gusset on the reservoir

 The first thing I did was to restore the reservoir with all new materials, leather hinges and gussets, and blue kraft paper. Thin lamb or goat skin works well for this. It compresses well and is flexible when glued. Pictured here is one of the gussets on the reservoir. When gluing it on I periodically wipe the leather with hot water which helps it stretch.

First, the reservoir releathered.

With the reservoir completed I turned to the feeder boards.  I put canvas hinges on the feeder boards and put leather hinges on the wide ends of the feeders.

The wooden ribs can be reused unless there is significant damage.

 

 

 

 

The feeder pumps are done except for the paper.

 

 

 

The wind system done!

 

....and installed back in the case!

 

 

 

Restoration of a Very Early French Harmonium: The Wind System Part 1

The wind system in a European harmonium is based on the principle of pressure. The wind system supplies a positive movement of air that blows air through the reeds to produce sound. The reed organs produced in the United States, after an initial period of development and experimentation, operated on the principle of negative pressure, or suction. The air is sucked through the reeds.  Each direction of air movement produces a characteristic tone. The European pressure instruments are often louder than their American counterparts, while the American suction organs have a more delicate, devotional tone. Most reed organs made in the U.S. were suction, whereas the demand for suction based reed organs in Europe eventually took a significant part of the market.

The Alexandre harmonium I am restoring is a pressure instrument. In this post I will begin to describe the restoration of the wind system so it functions as it was designed.

 

After I disassembled the wind system and removed it from the case I discovered some significant cracks in the bottom of the chest. The reservoir is attached below this, and this board must be air tight. 

To repair the cracks I widened them with a Japanese saw. These saws are great because they are very sharp and cut with just a few strokes. The reason for widening the cracks was to make the crack uniform in width so that I could splice in a piece of wood.

Once I fitted in the splices I planed down the excess wood so that the surface was flush.

 

After repairing the bottom board I turned my attention to the other boards of the wind system. The bottom of the reservoir was in perfect condition so it required no work other than to replace the relief valve. The boards for the feeder pumps, which are mounted under the reservoir and connect to the pedals, were another story. Here is

a picture of one of the boards, with multiple cracks. These boards were not salvageable so I reproduced them with 3/4" cabinet plywood.

The new feeder pump boards

After finishing the splices in the cracks I glued leather seals over each splice for insurance that the crack wouldn't leak. Sort of a fail safe thing.

Next time--re-covering the ribs for the reservoir and feeder pumps--and the blue paper!

Leather seals on both sides

Leather seals on both sides

 

Beauty is a Path to Resistance: The Politics of Music and History

Notice: This post is overtly and blatantly political. It is only partly about my harmonium restoration. If you're living in the land of MAGA you may not want to read this. Then again, maybe you should. 

Those who are following my restoration of a late 1840's Alexandre harmonium, made in France, know that it has been a very involved process, with every tiny part disassembled, parts cleaned and replaced as necessary, in order to bring this rare instrument back to life. Here's the real reason I'm doing this. Two parts:

1) I have worked on restoration projects all of my life. When I was very young my father introduced me to the world of taking something that was broken and bringing it back to functional use. I've been doing it since with musical instruments, books, furniture, you name it. It's a rescue of things from the past that still have meaningful value. But here's what underlies this today:  I am sharing updates of my restoration project on Facebook, in reed organ groups and also my personal page, as a way of sharing the process that will bring this rare, glorious instrument to full functioning. Despite Meta's changes, Facebook is still a valuable forum. I do not plan to leave it, even with the changes, because I am in many interest groups that I value. And, I do not shy away from expressing my opinion on any given subject.

2) I am livid, angry beyond words, about what the Trump administration is doing to dismantle anything of value in our country. The tariffs on products from Canada, Mexico, and China, with threats of more to come, do more than harm our own economy. They damage our relationship with those countries. Trump's nationalistic, isolationist bent would have us withdraw from the world and let it fall to pieces. We need those relationships with other countries. What happens when down the road, we need the assistance of Mexico or Canada? Are they going to be as willing to respond? I need to keep busy with something meaningful as an outlet for my anger and frustration.

This particular activity is, for me, an act of defiance. I'm sure that Trump and his cronies expect us to be quiet little drones and allow them to bulldoze all that is beautiful and worthwhile in this country.

With any political change, my biggest question is always "who is going to be hurt?" What we're seeing is a regime that is bent on hurting lots of people, trampling over them in an attempt to codify white male rage.

 

 

Beauty is a path to resistance. I refuse to live my life devoid of beauty and singularity. We are ruled by a regime that wants to rob those of us who dare to be individuals of the things that give us joy. No, I don't expect that we will be forced to live in anonymous concrete apartment buildings such as might be seen in North Korea. But I do expect that every effort will be made to silence voices that want to offer an alternative to the dumbed down, anti-intellectual morass that keeps difficult people at bay. Uneducated, uninformed, factually illiterate people who get their news from far right media such as Fox News, Newsmax, and other outlets will be more obedient than people like me who refuse the Kool Aid. We have to work hard to preserve and promote beauty, beauty in art but also beauty in life. The range of ideas and people in this country is a thing of beauty. I don't understand it all, and never will. But that doesn't mean it can't exist. 

We are now ruled by a regime that sees greed as a positive value, and is working to reinforce the support of greed as a force for good--good for the greedy, that is. Of course, the smokescreen that half of this country has drunk the Kool Aid, fully expecting that their grocery prices will come down significantly and gas will be cheaper than ever. They were fooled. The changes made so far have brought about only turmoil. The recent freezing of government grants, even though it lasted only a couple of days, is hurting a lot of people. Half of the states in the country stopped payments related to medical and economic assistance. That is hurting people, but the people at the top are untouched and unconcerned. They don't care because they know they don't have to.

The cancellation of diversifying the federal work force, and the buyout offer, has traumatized them. Of course. That's the intent. They don't know what's going to happen day to day. If anything goes wrong, it's the fault of the DEI people. "DEI" here is code language for anyone who is not white, male, and has no disabilities. Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the current regime is the refusal to acknowledge the value of all people in this country, not just some.

A number of people have been avidly following my restoration of my harmonium, and I'm happy to oblige with regular updates and blog entries. It is a very small effort to counteract the ugliness that has our country in a tight, regressive, destructive grip.

My harmonium was built during a time of political turmoil in France. Louis Philippe, the "Citizen King," was still in power but would soon be toppled in the Revolutions of 1848 which swept across Europe and altered the geopolitical landscape. Somebody during that time had this instrument in their parlor and played music while the turmoil raged outside. It has survived the deterioration caused by age and the reversible damage done by a bumbling restorer 40 years ago. It will soon be an object of beauty again, not only to look at but to play. 

I refuse to give in. I will continue to read what I damned well please. My faith informs my ability to choose what I am going to believe. The advantage I have, though, is privilege. I am a retired, cisgender white man. I have much more privilege than many others. I will not face the discrimination that people of color will experience, however. I can use my privilege to raise up issues when I see them and will do so.

I refuse to give in.

Restoration of a Very Early French Harmonium: The Alexandre Factory and the Industrial Revolution in France

 The Industrial Revolution came late to France. Into the early 19th century products were made in small shops by small groups of craftsmen. Much of France was still agricultural at the time so there were not factories in cities that people could gravitate to for employment. 

The textile and iron industries were among the first to develop on a larger scale. Interestingly, mill and factory owners in Britain helped these industries to get going, no doubt for a fee.

When Jakob Alexandre began the manufacture of harmoniums in 1843, large factories were not very common in France. An 1855 circular published by Alexandre touted the large, modern factory in the Ivry section of the outskirts of Paris. This circular, Les Orgues-Melodium D'Alexandre Pere & Fils was published as a handout for the 1855 Industrial Exposition in Paris, which showcased French industry.  After nearly fifty pages of glowing descriptions and testimonials about the Alexandre instruments the final pages offer illustrations of the showroom and factory.

My harmonium dates from 1846-1851, the years that the showroom was at the address on the label. Considering the stops that have the percussion feature are labelled "percussion" rather than the usual names, I believe this instrument to date from soon after Alexandre's purchase of the percussion patent, so probably 1846-48.

This is no small shop with half a dozen hands. This was a modern, well laid out factory with designated departments for every aspect of the manufacture of harmoniums.

Like many European cities, Paris has expanded greatly in its history, starting off with an island in the Seine River to the metropolis it is now. Paris at the time that Jakob Alexandre started manufacturing harmoniums is quite different than the Paris we are more familiar with. Paris as it is now is a creation of Georges Eugene Haussmann, with the full support of Napoleon III in the 1850's and beyond. 

In his novel Sentimental Education (1869) Gustav Flaubert offers an informative view of Paris in the late 1840's before the changes brought about by Haussmann. In Chapter VII Flaubert describes Ivry at the time that Alexandre was ramping up their production in that section of Paris, the exact period when my harmonium was being built. The main character, Frederic, passes through Ivry on his way to the city. Flaubert's description is of a broken down industrial wasteland:

The plain, quite broken up, seemed a waste of ruins. The enclosing wall of the fortifications made a horizontal swelling there; and, on the footpath, on the ground at the side of the road, little branchless trees were protected by laths bristling with nails. Establishments for chemical products and timber-merchants' yards made their appearance alternately. High gates, like those seen in farm-houses, afforded glimpses, through their opening leaves, of wretched yards within, full of filth, with puddles of dirty water in the middle of them. Long wine-shops, of the colour of ox's blood, displayed in the first floor, between the windows, two billiard-cues crossing one another, with a wreath of painted flowers. Here and there might be noticed a half-built plaster hut, which had been allowed to remain unfinished. Then the double row of houses was no longer interrupted; and over their bare fronts enormous tin cigars showed themselves at some distance from each other, indicating tobacconists' shops. Midwives' signboards represented in each case a matron in a cap rocking a doll under a counterpane trimmed with lace. The corners of the walls were covered with placards, which, three-quarters torn, were quivering in the wind like rags. Workmen in blouses, brewers' drays, laundresses' and butchers' carts passed along. A thin rain was falling. It was cold. There was a pale sky; but two eyes, which to him were as precious as the sun, were shining behind the haze.     (Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34828/34828-h/34828-h.htm#CHAPTER_VII) accessed 1/27/25)

Although Ivry is now very much a part of Paris, at the time it was a broken up suburb that had little to commend itself.

Possibly the assembly department?

What appears to be the case department. Note the spacious and well-lit work area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The well-appointed showroom in classical style must have exuded sophistication and elegance.

 The Alexandre factory is completely gone today, but their instruments survive today in fairly large numbers. The Alexandre firm continued under new ownership until 1939.