Wurlitzer 145B at The Nenana Alaska Fourth of July Celebration

[@rebelrailz.]

Wow! Beautiful sound! Band organs are absolutely fabulous machines.

[@wurly164]

Art, very nice sound, I own a 146b myself. I run a 164 for a local museum

[@Art_Thompson]

Thanks. The 145’s were somewhat different from a 146. They have wood piccolos similar to those on a 153 instead of the octave violins that are in the 146, and the trombones are higher in pitch and the note order is different. The 145 is also about 6” shorter than the 146. There were only thirteen 145’s made, and only 4 were 145B’s. Mine is 4336, built in 1939, the third to the last new band organ to leave the Wurlitzer factory. It has a duplex roll frame, and may be the only surviving 145 that came from the factory with duplex and bells. I too worked with a museum that had several band organs that I looked after. I believe this may be the only band organ currently in Alaska, but you never know what someone might have squirreled away somewhere. A 164, only three made and if I am not mistaken there is only one that is known to have survived.... pretty cool.

[@finntrautsch2065]

that's the one he restored

[@Jordanpgates1]

So few could provide this wonderful talent to keep these organs from extinction! Great job Art!

[@MechanicalMusics]

This sounds FANTASTIC! The transition this went through is truly phenomenal-- your work being the 3rd major overhaul in the span of 5 years... But boy did that pay off, The voicing of the pipes is simply heavenly! I could listen to this for hours!

[@Art_Thompson]

Thank you for the kind words. It was with some trepidation that I acquired this instrument after hearing some of the videos of it, but it seemed mechanically sound and I had dealt successfully with much worse. I think the main issue with some of these is that the restoration is approached from the standpoint of the organ being a machine as opposed to a musical instrument. Many times, if the pipes merely speak, that is deemed good enough. It turned out that aside from a few pipes that needed repair and re-curving some of the reed tongues , the main issue was that the wind pressure was too high. No one caught this, they just assumed that all Wurlitzer band organs run on 8”. I have found this to not necessarily be the case. Indeed, upon examining the spring bar for the pressure reservoir, it was apparent that an extra compass spring had been added at some later time. In addition, the pitch was at A=440, which was too high for the pipes to speak properly. This organ, was apparently originally voiced on 5 1/2” and at A=435 at 68 F.