Organ Modifications for your Castlewood Organ

Hello! I hope you had as much fun building your Castlewood Organ as I did. Now that I'm finished I've found the following modifications to keep me busy, and which hopefully improve the function and style of the Castlewood. Not all the credit belongs to me, I've had the fortune to visit with other Castlewood owners and have simply documented their efforts here.

1) Feet Edges - to protect the edges of the organ bottom.

2) Modified Eccentric - greatly improves the smoothness of the crank mechanism.

3) Another Modified Eccentric - from Roger Jones.

4) Sound Damper - great way to reduce the noise when playing in a small room/house.

5) Rewind Mechanism - cool little modification that permits you to rewind with the pressure box in the closed position.

6) Another Rewind Mechanism - not as automatic as #4 above, but looks cool, and helps bleed off pressure when starting rolls. Eliminates the "riff" sound when the roll starts.

7) Paper Roll holder for under your Castlewood - very cool drawer assembly to mount under your box - mine holds 8 jumbo rolls

8) Leather straps - I copied these from an original Street Organ from Craig Smith's Collection.

9) Lid Closure - Better than the hook catch

10) Corner protectors - protect the edges of your Castlewood.

11) Larger Handle - makes turning the crank smoother

12) Give it a Paint Job, or add some decoration

13) Get a better seal on the Pressure Box

14) Have a problem with Music Roll slippage?

15) Build a Cart for your Castlewood - with thanks to Charles Supplee

16) Going back over the Pipes - I've decided to redo all the pipes on my Castlewood

17) Bellows Blow-out? Don Gibble has a modification that looks great.

18) Music Spool Lineup Tool - with thanks to Roger Jones

19) All a Flywheel to eliminate the "bump" from the eccentric

Any other modifications that you've come up with? I'd love to hear about them at chscable@mac.com