[SEL] Not Quite OT: Gray Motor (And Hammond Organ) Trivia

[John Culp]

On Jan 19, 2005, at 4:59 PM, Dave Croft wrote:

> Hi John, about 20 years ago I had a part time job repairing electric 
> organs.
> I just did this to provide my beer money! The circuits were mainly 
> I/C's on
> the PCB's. I still have a folder of circuit diagrams & I think I also 
> have a bag
> of I/C's somewhere.
> I only worked on one large Hammond & I was horrified when I took the 
> back
> off to find all the horizontal revolving shafts with the tone wheels 
> instead of circuit boards.
> I only survived that job because my day job was an Electro-Mechanical
> *telephone exchange engineer. (*Central Office engineer in American)
> Most Hammonds had disappeared even then.

Hammonds, like hit and miss engines, haven't quite disappeared and 
can't quite be replaced by anything else. :-)

I've just come home from the music store, the manager of which is a 
real Hammond guru and who's been egging me on. He's got Hammonds and 
Leslies everywhere. There's a really nice B3 in the back that I've been 
drooling over, and a Leslie 122 close to it. A bit out of my range, 
though. I'm in the process of trying to talk the old folks' Sunday 
School class, The Loyal Bereans, into giving me the beautiful little 
Hammond M3 spinet in their classroom that needs more TLC than would be 
economically feasible to hire professionally done, but would be a great 
project for me. Sort of like fixing up an old engine. Those little 
spinet Hammonds are essentially valueless at the moment, but the guts 
of a B3 and an M3 are nearly identical. The main difference is that the 
M3's missing about an octave and a half on the low end of the manuals, 
and only has 12 bass pedals. If the Loyal Bereans don't want to let me 
have their (currently useless) M3, another'll turn up before long. And 
K.D. (the aforesaid Hammond guru) is probably about to take in an 
obscure Leslie Model 600 on a debt. That one's horizontal instead of 
vertical, looking much like a '60s stereo cabinet. Gigging musicians 
don't like 'em because of their shape and awkwardness for moving, but 
it'd be fine in a house, and I just might get a (relatively) cheap 
Leslie that way! I don't have a background of organ playing, but do 
have some piano experience, and I can figure it out! (Who'll really 
take to it is my boy Joe. He can play just about anything. I hear him 
downstairs teaching himself harmonica right now.)

Jane won't be thrilled about me dragging big stuff like organs and 
Leslies in, but she'll get used to it. Better to ask forgiveness than 
permission, so mum's the word.

John Culp
Bristol, Tennessee, USA