The Saint Paul’s organ is having a leather job!

The Saint Paul’s Organ is having a leather job!

You’ve heard of “face jobs, “roof jobs, “hip jobs”? The Saint Paul’s organ, valued at more than $1.5 million, will be heard for the final time on Sunday 24 May 2020 before undergoing a $75,000 “leather job.” The work is being done by Cornel Zimmer Organ Builders of Denver, NC, the curators of the Saint Paul’s organ, built in 1966 by Casavant Freres Limitee of Quebec. The company rebuilt and modernized the organ in 1996 and the work included the replacement of all external leather. Because the internal leather was pristine it was left alone. 25 years later, after almost 60 years of service, the leather is deteriorating.

Why do pipe organs have leather? High quality leather is used to cover all of the external wind reservoirs, the sealed boxes that fill with air when the organ is being played. This leather (white or black) is visible to the naked eye.

What isn’t visible are several thousand very small pieces of leather used in the instrument’s playing action. These are hidden inside the organ’s wind chests (mahogany boxes on which the pipes sit). The mechanism that opens & closes the valves letting air into the individual pipes is part of the wind chests and the Saint Paul’s organ has almost a dozen of these. After 50-60 years the chest leather begins to deteriorate and must be replaced. This involves removing the playing action, removing all the old leather (glued), cutting thousands of new pieces of leather and regluing it. The organ will be silent for the next several months as this painstaking work is performed at the Zimmer factory. While the Casavant organ is being re-leathered the church will have a “loaner”  electronic organ.