Street Organs

steamman · Street Organs

Hello !!!!

Whilst having a large collection of steam engines I also own two street organs. Both organs are turned by hand and and are fitted with real working bellows and organ pipes.

The First organ is supplied in kit form from Australia and is a 20 note Castlewood busker organ. It took Me and my dad Five months to build and plays by music rolls. The design of this organ is based on the John smith busker organs and is Known as a direct action.

The second organ was built by Paul McCarthy in 2007 and is a 14 note keyless street organ. This plays by Cardboard books just like the fairground organs you find at steam fairs. This is the smallest organ he makes and it is very heavy!!!! All The music books are cut by hand and the largest is ten metres long!!!

Enjoy!!!!

SillyBilly

Awsome, I love the first one with the W&G theme tune

!

Dampfzauberer

Cool

I especially like the first one, with the wallace& gromit soundtrack

johnreid

Good show!

MTA

I bet your arm hurts after a while! Like Mirko and Will, I like the Wallace & Gromit one

IndianaRog

Steamman...we have another member who also has hand organs like yours...you guys should compare "notes"...his name is John Chapman.

James

Wow!

That's a bit of alreet ain't it?

I like street and fairground organs - I shall make sure I own a full size fairground organ one day!

steamyjim

Very nice!!

Love the Wallace and Grommit one!

Sandman

Great to see mate.

Thanks for sharing.

Dauntless

I'm Dead impressed mate!

really good thanks for sharing
Paul.

mc_mc

I feel the urge to part with some loose change after listening to those two.

bessytractor

I listened to the W&G one twice

I also had great fun "spotting" the miniature locos in the background!

Battery one was a maxitrak Ruston and the steamer I think was a Minx

James

Steamman, do you write your own music for them?

If so, I'd love to hear one playing "Carnival in Venice"

tmuir

The maker of the kit organ from Australia live about an hours drive from me and I'm pretty sure another member of this forum has one aswell.

steamman

At the moment all the music is cut for me. The Castlewood rolls are cut on a machine and each roll can hold about four complete tunes. In total I Have about 40 tunes for the Castlewood.

With the McCarthy the music is cut on a hand operated music machine. Each hole is marked and cut by hand, no easy task!!!

I might have a try one day!!!

James

Cooool!

Where can I buy one of these, and how much would it cost?

rangerssteamtoys

Wow those are some cool looking organs. Nice little replicas (if you will)

steamman

The Castlewood organ was sold in 2005 for about £500.00. However once you have paid air mail the total is about £700.00.
you then have to buy the tools to build the organ if you don't have them already.

The McCarthy organ was sold in August 2007 for £950.00.

The music is then sold between £15.00 to £40.00 depending on the music lenth and the organ its played on. The books for the McCarhty are much harder to make and so more expensive.

You can buy the plans for a 20 note John smith organ which they say you can build for about £100.00, but you need the space and skill to build one from scratch. We built the Castlewood kit organ on the dining room table!!!!!

hope that helps!!!!

tmuir

James

A John Smith one?

Got any pics or owt?