Category Archives: Blog

Bad wiring will burn your church down or electrocute you

We see it all the time and we fix it. Bad wiring in Hammond organs. The wiring insulation is so old it can literally  fall off the wires. The wires in question may carry 120 volts from the wall outlet  ALL THE TIME EVEN WHEN THE ORGAN IS OFF.  The wires can short together and spark a fire or one side of the AC line may just come into contact with a metal part of the organ making it a shock hazard waiting to happen.

Ever been playing and touch a microphone with your lips!

We replace the bad wiring, add a three prong grounded plug and a fuse. If any stray voltages end up on the organ chassis they will be grounded so no harm can come to the musician and if the short is strong enough it will trip the breaker alerting us to the problem.

 

               

Old wiring removed from Hammond C3                        What we replace with, grounded, fused, up to date wiring

A FIRE HAZARD!

Checking out a Hammond organ before you buy

IT is important to check out a vintage Hammond organ before you buy. The key contacts and pedal contacts are an area that is not easily repaired. One should run every key one drawbar at a time before buying. Purchasing from ebay or any on line seller is very risky. You should ask the seller to make a video with their phone or other device and send it to you. We offer Hammond organs that are tested for many attributes before we sell it to a buyer. Any defects that are not repairable are pointed out to the buyer before the deal is made. A worn out keyboard is not a good investment!

 

  

Loss of tones on keyboards and pedals B3, C3, all older tone wheel models

You may be experiencing loss of tones on your keyboards or pedals. There are 9 contacts under each key including the presets. Thats 720 per keyboard,. If you lose connection on a preset key, you will lose that one drawbar on every playing key. IF you lose contact under a playing key you lose one or more of the 9 available drawbar tones. The greater long term danger is that now the bussbars cannot be shifted as originally intended by Hammond because the problem could end up even worse. The proper way to repair this is to do a buss bar clean/lube job. Then shift the bussbars to a new spot. Call me for pricing and details. 704.798.0299. In most cases the results are 100%.

Is It Time for a NEW LESLIE AMP

We work on Leslies pretty much every day. Most of the time we are asked to patch them up enough to play because of lack of finances available for the repair. You can patch so much that now you don't have a sound that is even close to the original. PLease consider a rebuilt amp or a totally new amp. They sound great!

Hammond Leslie Parts

Bring Back the Leslie

AS many of you have noticed, the Leslie 122a and 147a are not the same as the original 122 and 147. Several things like a styro foam bass rotor, pulse modulated motor and driver board componets have replaced the the super dependable older motor drive systems. Even the horn bearing lasts only a few years. Why, so they can be made cheaper of course.

I have been building my own Leslies for years now and here is the end product. It costs no more than a new Hammond Suzuki Leslie and is built to last. The old way! And it can be ordered in whatever finish you want and it can be built into the shorter 145,142 cabinet and it can have a heavier than normal bass speaker. Yo pump up that low end.

 

 

Organ doesn’t have enough Bass

This can result from a number of things. If the Leslie has a bad speaker that is a problem we see a lot. Placement in the room and room acoustics play a big part. You may want to try our tone booster see http://www.organguru.com/276-2/ or our super sub bass system that employs an 18" sub and separate amp. see http://www.organguru.com/super-sub-bass-booster/