The Hammond organ was a masterpiece of an instrument and the fact that it was developed in a day when electronic technology was pre-semiconductor. The mechanics of the design are incredible. The fact that these organs could be used from church music through to heavy rock is a testament to the design. OK, nowadays the sound can be reproduced - almost - using software and DSPs, but nothing beats the feel of a Hammond keyboard. In my life I have been privelaged to play only a handful of real Hammonds and in 1999 I came within a whisker of actually owning one, but circumstances and a nagging wife stopped that!
Bob, I can't thank you enough for sharing your respectable knowledge. As a Hammond lover, I may someday need to focus of the mechanics of the keybed contacts. This will certainly give me a good perspective going forward. Thank you Bob!
Bob, Thank You for this timely video!! Your commitment to the Hammond community is refreshing and much needed!! Thanks for taking the time to do this!!
Bob, Thank you so much for the great videos that you produce. Living in a Hammond desert (little to no Hammond technical support) the value of your videos is truly invaluable to us. Von, Sandy, Utah
This brought back so many memories :-) I served an apprenticeship as an organ engineer and one of the jobs I had to do was stripping and cleaning the busbars on Hammond organs. We used a cleaning product called cocalene (not sure of the spelling) supplied by Hammond.
At 1:02 Those contacts are made of Palladium. The same material used on Plain Old Telephine Systems (POTS) switching relays. That is an expensive element (about $950 USD per ounce). You might want to save the contacts for recyling/cash if you ever scrap a Hammond Organ.
Hi bob. I’ve watched all your videos and they are wonderful. I’m looking at fixing my A100 keyboard as many keys are not sitting at the same level. I think I can do that now after watching your videos. One video that would really help me and I’ve not found one on RU-vid yet is how to service and repair a Leslie connector. Mine is noisy and probably just needs a good clean and re-solder on both the cable and amplifier pins but a video would be great if you ever have time. Thanks kindly. Mikis.
Hi Bob ! A big thank for your videos. They are very precious, It really helped me cleaning my Hammond C3's busbars. I had an issue when I brought back the busbars in the upper manual. My son accidentally pressed a preset key on the upper manual. I didn't see that and now I have to do the job again. Before I desassemble the organ, do I have something special to do ? Recognize the pressed preset, pull up or down all the upper drawbars, press the cancel key before removing the busbars (I will do that when I'll put back the busbars, like you tell us in your video !) or press the preset key corresponding to the sound I hear ? I've made some research on the web but didn't find the information. I'm a little bit lost and I don't understand how the preset keys contacts work. A big thank and best regards from France.
WOW these videos about maintenance of the Hammond are scaring me. I hope the instrument I was blessed with is not in any bad trouble. Hasn't been turned on for a great number of years...A beauty B 3..Hammond organs seem to be more mechanical, than electronic
They are really a machine. Electronics are only for amplification of the sound. I am in possession of a Model A, Serial #41, made in 1934. It still works.
Hi Bob, I just picked up an a100 paid around $500 for it l, it's a beauty, but that being said, I'm missing tones on Certain keys, another words no sound coming through from different keys, and looked to see if there were lose wires on draw bars None that I can tell, would the busbars cause me to lose tones on keys??? Thanks Bob
Really good video! Thank you! Is there any way you would clean the to key contacts? Maybe difficult to enter them. Would you suggest blowing pressured air on them or other? Is it kind of the same procedure to clean the busbars in the pedal board?
There is no way to clean all the contacts without completely disassembling the keyboard, which would be a nightmare! As you can see, the contacts are towards the front of the keyboard, and the sheet metal that is hiding the contacts is a main part of the keyboard, not a cover as it is in the back. Personally, I would not recommend blowing air into the keyboard at all. Doing so would dislodge all the dust and zinc whiskers that have accumulated over the years and possibly cause more problems. The pedal board is functionally the same, but it is a lot harder to access. I do not have any pictures of the pedal board so it would be hard to describe.
Question: I have a ground hum that disappears as soon as the first contact is made when pushing the key slowly enough to hear each tone. Any tips on what to check first? The ground wires are all connected near as I can tell, but I have not reconnected all of the presets aside from the Drawbars, but they are bundled and covered. (63 without foam)
Not easy at all! Hours to get in there. 97 tone generator wires, plus the buss bar commons, plus the pre-amp, and all power supplies. Then disassemble the drawbar rail and lift it up. It gets worse the more you get into it. It's worth it in the end, but such a pain! Oh yes.... and the wires behind the keys are not normal wires that break, they are special resistance wire. Even more fun to fix.
I posted a video on this procedure. Not difficult, but somewhat time consuming. After you do it a few times, it takes less than an hour to get it on the bench.
Great video, but at 4:35 I recommend you wear nitrile gloves when handing the Bus Bars. Oils from your hands contaminate them and cause corrosion over time which defeats the purpose of cleaning them in the first place.
I have enough oil on my fingers that this is really not a problem. Besides, the palladium wire is the contact surface, and I do not touch that. But you can do as you please.
Hey Bob, is there any way I can troubleshoot and or tell if my run motor for the tone generator is bad? I've been trying to start up my generator for a few weeks now it hasn't been started in decades, I've added oil and it has loosened up quite a bit, my starter motor is spinning the tone generator however I'm not sure if it's spinning it up to speed but as soon as I hit my run switch while holding the start switch down everything just Fizzles out after I let go of the start switch. If I hit my run switch my tubes are lighting but I am feeling no vibration or hum coming from my run motor and I was wondering if there is any way I can troubleshoot to see if my run motor is bad or not. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated
A quick test is to switch the run switch to ON without using the START switch. Try to turn the TG shaft; you should feel resistance. If it turns easily then the motor is bad. If you feel resistance, then at least one of the 2 coils is good. To further test you will need to unsolder the wires and check for resistance in each coil. Each coil is around 95 ohms, both together is about 190. It is also possible that either the TG or the scanner is gummed up, preventing the TG from rotating freely. You should be able to spin the shaft and it will frewheel slowly to a stop. Another thing that can go bad is the resistor that is under that metal cover in front of the run motor. It can go bad and prevent the run motor from getting power. Lastly, the run switch itself is sometimes a problem, but since you can switch it on and the amp powers on that is probably not your problem.
@@bobmann107 okay thank you so much for the feedback, I had a feeling about that resistor. However when I have my run switch on and turn that flywheel I don't feel any resistance at all so final question would be would I be able to take that resistor and jump it just to see if my run motor is good? I have a friend of mine coming over in a few minutes who is an electronics engineer and I think we are going to unsolder those run motor wires and ohm it out. My biggest issue with this CV model is that the tone generator is pretty buried in there and it's not easily accessible but I know there's that shelf plate that holds the amplifier and all of that so that shouldn't be too difficult to get that shelf out of the way I'm basically trying to do everything possible to need to pull that tone generator out of the console. So if my run motor is bad, hopefully removing that shelf I may be able to replace that run motor without needing to pull the whole generator out of there again thank you so much for all the advice I really really appreciate it have a great day
Ok bob so i confirmed that the Run motor is bad, I will be picking one of those up in the next week or so. I saw a video of yours on your CV model, and I noticed on mine I have to Leslie type switches one is for the 222 Leslie cabinet that I have and the other one is 4 ADR 20 cabinet with the spring reverb tank. My question is when I was able to get some sound out of my organ by holding both the start and run switches at the same time I noticed my bass rotor on the 222 was spinning fast while my horns were spinning slow. When I tried flipping the switch on any of the Leslie switches they were not slowing down or speeding up and on some positions I was getting no sound at all. I know I need to crawl before I can run, my main concern is getting that run motor installed and just getting the Oregon to work but if you have any suggestions on what maybe my issue with the Leslie I'd appreciate it at this point I don't really care about the dr20 cabinet because it is actually disassembled in pieces I just want my Leslie 222 to work properly with Chorale and tremolo speed
De-oxit D5 is a very, very good contact cleaner here in the States. It doesn't leave a residue over time and has a flushing action in order to clear out gunk.
Hi Bob. Thanks for these videos. I bought a 1959 Hammond A100 and Leslie in January but I am absolutely useless when it comes to repairs. I do have a friend I might call on to help me with a few things - I am wondering if there is a way to get your email address. From the East Coast of Canada
There is one and only one source for most parts inside a Hammond. A donor organ. Sadly, this means that there is a finite supply of parts available, and some point in the future spare parts will become very expensive due to scarcity and only those with deep pockets will be able to afford them.
