Chest organ

The chest organ

Chest organs get their name from their appearance.  They consist literally of a chest with the musical instrument inside. A chest organ is the most compact type of organ that we know.

Our chest organs are made in two parts:

  1. The lower part, containing the blower in a sound-proofed box, the regulator, the bellows, and the largest pipes of the 8’ stop.
  2. The upper part. This contains the wind chest, the keyboard, the action, and the rest of the pipes. You can reach all the pipes easily from the front (keyboard side) so that tuning it by yourself is very simple.

Building a chest organ

We build our new chest organs following our own original design.  The dimensions (scaling) of the pipes are based on the Dutch house-organ tradition of the 17th and 18th centuries, a period in which the organ took over bourgeois living rooms and developed an original style.

There are 3 models to choose between:

  • small
  • medium
  • large

>Look here for the specifications of our chest organs

We build a beautiful new instrument with our own design.  If you would prefer a copy of a historical instrument, that is also possible.  During the whole building process you have a great deal of choice.

The building of a new chest organ usually takes between 6 months and 1 year.

Materials

We use only natural materials in the chest organs we build. Hieronder leest u welke dat zijn. 

Kas en Mechaniek

We devote a great deal of attention to the choice of these materials and construction methods.  This will help to keep your organ in tune and prevent defects.

For the case we use Lebanon cedar.  This wood has excellent acoustical qualities and is relatively insensitive to changes of weather.  Moreover, it has a strikingly beautiful surface.

Most of the interior and the action are made from western red cedar.  This wood is also quite stable under changing humidity.  It is also very light.  These characteristics are extremely important because chest organs get moved around a lot.  One day they’re in a relatively damp church, the next day they’re back in a very dry living room.

The natural keys are covered with bone or boxwood.  The sharps are made of cherry and covered with ebony.  The key frame and the carved cheek pieces are also of cherry.

All the parts of the organ (except the blower, which is electrical) are made in our own workshop.

Moving a chest organ

Chest organs are easy to transport.  They have no protruding parts that can easily be damaged.

You can shove the whole keyboard into the organ before you move the instrument.

To protect chest organs when moving them we offer so-called “flight cases”.  These sturdy transport cases are made to order for our organs.

More info?

Contact us.  We’ll be happy to tell you more about the possibilities.