Calvary Episcopal Church in Williamsville NY, is home to a large Schlicker organ built in 1970. This three-manual organ contains 38 Stops across five divisions: Great, Swell, Positiv, Pedal, and Antiphonal (in the back of the church). Over time the stop action motors of the organ started seizing up—to the point where some stops were unplayable. The church hired Parsons to replace all 38 stop action motors as well repair some collapsing pipework.
Work began in late April, removing the old stop action motors and replacing them with new ones. This was no small task as some of this work involved scaffolding and often removing up to half the pipework of a division to even reach the motors. Parsons also fabricated clear acrylic covers over the stop action motors to help mitigate dust collection on the magnets.
In addition, there were a handful of pipes in the Antiphonal 4’ Principal that were collapsing and leaning severely under their own weight, resulting in major speech issues in addition to the visual discrepancy from the pews below! Parsons sent the first 12 pipes out for repair and then provided new racking to help support those pipes to prevent this problem from happening again in the future. That was challenging due to the very constricted space between pipes in the Antiphonal, as well as a desire not to see the racking from the pews below.
The work was completed in early June with the reinstallation of the repaired pipes, the racking, and the dust covers for the stop action motors. The organ was given a thorough tuning and is now ready to continue to serve the congregation at Calvary!
