Blair Batty
St Pauls Westdale organ

St Paul's Westdale Hamilton

This is the second organ I built under my own name. It is all new, except for some of the pipework in the swell, which came from the previous 4 rank unit Hallman organ of this church. We built the console, keyboards, pedalboards, chests, bellows, all the wood pipes, and most metal pipes.

This two manual organ has slider chest with electric action. We built the chests, casework pipes (except the zinc facade), console, keyboards and pedalboard and bellows; almost everything. The only borrowing was the shared trumpet, and a couple of pedal stops.

The Stoplist

GREAT ORGAN

SWELL 0RGAN

PEDAL

COUPLERS

The Console

The console has a transposer switch and a combination action with a total of 30 pistons, three reversible pistons and 25 memories. The Full organ piston, and the crescendo pedal are fully programmable by the organist. So that they remain reliable, the electrical contacts are either gold plated or sealed reed switches. The organ is controlled by two computers. One computer is in the console and controls the key, stop and combination actions. The other computer is up in the chamber, controlling the pipes. The two computers talk to each other through a thin cable of only 5 pairs of wires.

The console is equipped with MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). It also has a sequencer, which is a recording and playback device. The sequencer controls the organ, causing it to behave like a player piano; it employs computer disks instead of paper rolls. Through MIDI, the organ also can play or be played by other electronic musical instruments. The console shell, pedalboard frame, and bench are of solid oak. The keyboard naturals are covered with cowbone, with sharps of ebony. The pedal key naturals are of hard maple, the drawknobs of rosewood and the stopjamb panels of contrasting ebony.

Mechanical Design

There are three pipe divisions, controlled by the Swell (upper), the Great (lower) and the Pedalboard. The pipes for the Great and Pedal divisions are located on the left side of the organ. The Swell pipes are on the right side of the organ. The casework containing the swell pipes has louvres or shutters at the front. By opening and closing the louvers with a pedal at the console, the organist can increase or decrease the amount of Swell organ sound reaching the listener.

The organ bellows is fed by a 3/4 hp. electric blower. From the bellows, the wind goes to the windchests, upon which the pipes sit. The two main windchests are each equipped with a schwimmer, a type of air pressure regulator. The swell box shutters and casework are made of solid oak. Windchests re of oak and poplar and are of the slider variety with electropneumatically controlled pallets, or valves. Slider windchests were chosen for the Swell and Great to allow better blend and speech of the pipework. They are also very reliable and durable because of their simple construction and minimal use of leather.

Tonal Design

The organ, installed in 1993, has a British inspired design, to play the variety of organ literature needed for the Anglican service. The basic choruses (Diapasons and Flutes) are inspired by the work of William Hill, an 19th century English organbuilder. The Trumpet is built in a North German, Schnitger style with adjustments to help it work well in the pedal. It has large scale leathered shallots with lead plates, and wooden boots. The Cornet and other mutations are of classical French design.

The organ also has a Salicional and Celeste, to provide the warmth that is so useful in music of the Romantic era. The scales and voicing are inspired by the famous French builder, Cavaille-Coll. To improve the blend of the Mixtures and Mutations the organ is tuned in a mildly unequal temperament, after Kirnberger. Though useful for pianos, equal temperament is usually a poor choice for organs as it leaves the third intervals so badly out of tune.

Most of the pipes were made by the builder. The metal was cast in Simcoe, then hand scraped, cut to size, mouths cut in, rounded into pipes and soldered. The metal pipes are of spotted metal which has a bright sound, or hammered lead which gives it a mellower tone. Wood pipes are of oak. With the British inspired design, we elected to use traditional English stop names. We could see no compelling reason to use the Germanic nomenclature that had been in style for the last couple of decades.

Builders of the Organ

Other Participants