(UPDATE 7/14/16) The snare drum mechanism is back on the organ and playing. It has been on for 2 weeks now but a small issue had the organ not playing for a few days. Now it should be playing continuously again! Here's a video I took showing the snare drum in action:
The freshly refurbished snare drum mechanism at Kings Island is playing up a storm! pic.twitter.com/JO22dpunhe
— Mechanical Music (@mechanicalmusic) July 1, 2016
(UPDATE 5/13/16) Here is a before and after photo of the newly refurbished snare drum mechanism to be installed soon. Not only will it play - but reiterate like a real snare drum would! (UPDATE 5/11/2016) Went back to the park today to do more work on the organ - and left with it sounding pretty good with just a few minor issues! The tempo is fixed now! In other words - no more funeral marches. If anything, one of the rolls I just put on is running a little too fast! The handle that changes the tempo is still broken, but tempo can still easily be adjusted manually inside the organ. New front snare drum head! (the back head was in good shape) The fixed snare mechanism also arrived today.... After I got back from the park. So the reiterating snare drum will be back soon, but not yet. TUNED! (Not perfect, but it's much better) Me and a few guys from maintenance moved the facade forward and the organ back and I went through and tuned about half of the organ with the time that I had. I did not have time to tune the entire organ though, so some ranks of pipes are not on, simply because it wouldn't sound too good! The extra ranks are controlled by 2 draw stops on the side of the organ, so while there are ranks not playing - this could be reversed with just pushing in a stop. A lot of cleaning was also done to the areas around the drums also. The two rolls now playing are 6612 and 6641. Still much work to be done, but most of this is something to be saved for the wintertime. The 'thing' in the pipe, for the record, is to stop the pipe from playing while being tuned. Several ranks play from one note on the roll, so this allows each individual pipe to be tuned. (Original 4/18) Hello everyone! I was at the park 4/18 (Monday after opening weekend) to do work on the band organ and spent around 5 hours on various things. It was absolutely wonderful working with the skilled, friendly people in the maintenance department who helped me a great deal; you never get a real appreciation of a park until you meet the people behind it! First of all, I changed the rolls, the rolls currently playing now are 6681-6682 and my own arranged roll: 6614. Second, new bass drum heads were put on. The old ones were in pretty poor shape, probably being around 30 or so years old. (They were not the originals) I also have new snare drum heads to be put on, but it wasn't practical to put them on yet as the snare drum is currently not in operation. Speaking of the snare drum, I have sent the mechanism out to a specialist in Pennsylvania for repair. The snare drum mechanism has not reiterated for (what I hear) around 25 or more years but will be back sounding great, along with new snare drum heads in a few weeks. Some problems I should address that I wish to fix soon: 1. Again, the snare drum mechanism is not on the organ right now, it is being fixed and will be back soon. 2. The (low bass) trombone pipes have been malfunctioning which is why they have not been on the past 3 years the organ has played. A draw stop on the side of the organ turns them on/off, but when on, one note consistently plays, this is likely due to some small particles blocking the action from moving, which I would like to fix soon. 3. The organ needs a good tuning, I am aware of this! This was what I was going to do Monday, but I got caught up on other things such as the bass drum heads, which took longer to install than I originally thought! 4. The tempo is quite slow and the tempo control is not connected to the mechanism as of right now. At least it gives a longer amount of time before a song repeats! If anyone goes to Kings Island the next few weeks and hears it - let me know what you think! It's going to be a long haul to get the organ back to what it was, but it's one I'm willing to go through! Mikey Mills www.mechanicalmusic.org