Re my own organ, I never had it operating in Kindersley with the old console. It was in playing order when I took it down in ’55 and I took a tape recording of all the stops and divisions before this was done. Up until December of this year, however, I never had room to set up such a monster. This summer we started on the music room, and before the cold weather set in we had the interior finished, except the floor hardwood, which will have to wait until most of the organ is in. All the framework, bellows, main chests and swell boxes are in place, plus the chest and pipes of the 16’ Open Wood, which go in the back. Many sore muscles and grunts were the order of the day, I am afraid. I had electrified the choir chest, the smallest, and had it connected to the three manual console in the shop, just so that I would have something to play once in a while.

Also the Pedal is not as it was, of course. I am able to make chests here in my shop of the unit type, and will do so for extending the present ranks as well as adding new ones. I will have to build a pedal relay as well. The old pedal had the following:
Wood Diapason 16’ extended to 8’   42 pipes
Bourdon 16’       extended to 8’   42 pipes
Gedeckt 16’       from Swell       30 notes
Trombone 16’      extended to 8’   42 pipes
Violon  8’        30 pipes         30 pipes metal

As for the additional pipes, I hope to be able to use some of the many I have in stock. For instance, I have the pipes of a large 2-manual Warren from Elm Street church in Toronto, built about 1880, low pressure. The wood diapason (stopped) has a most beautiful sound, with a slight chiff when it commences speech. It had two mixtures on the Great plus Twelfth, and a mixture, trumpet and clarion on the swell. It had a 16’ open metal diapason on the Great as well. I won’t need it, however, as the Winnipeg also had that stop on the Great, most of them in the bass tubed off in the casework. This I intend to borrow for a light double to the pedal, as you may have noticed. To the 36 ranks of pipes from Toronto I also have a few ranks from a Warren 1913 taken from an Edmonton church, they are higher pressure, of course, about 3 and ½ to 4 inches. (S. Kennedy notation: St. John’s Lutheran 2-6)

The Masonic organ is electric, with oak case, extended from three ranks, Principal 4’, Melodia 8’ and Bourdon 16’, plus a 4’ very quiet dolce. The 8 ranker in Father’s house is a Kolbinson, Robbins, Casavant. (Specification based on Casavant’s #207U). When it was made, materials were very scarce due to the war, so Cyril Robbins and I made the chests in Toronto. Robbins was a very fine craftsman, of at least Casavant standard or better, the chests have never given an instants’ trouble in 15 years. Some of the pipes were those I had collected, Casavants supplied the rest including the 16’ Bassoon, and the base octave of the diapason, Gamba Dulciana and Trumpet. The Oboe is American make as is the Stopped Diapason. I had a new Casavant Vox Humana but traded it for the Trumpet some years ago. The console is a Casavant and the swell shutters I bought from Harvey in Calgary many years ago.
(Edited due to space limitations)
Enough for now many thanks again, and I hope you can tell me what you have found out about those direct electric stopknobs! I agree with you about Klann being better than Reisner, except for the chest magnets, horseshoe type, I think along with Stoot that they are the best magnet made. Their direct electric magnet is another story.

Yours very truly,
Stuart