A hammond chop.

[pucho812]

Due to recent activity I am now the proud owner of a hammond chop.  For those not failure the hammond chop so a hammond organ where they chop/cut the cabinet to make it easier and lighter to transport.  This chop was cut right after the bottom of the cabinet before the legs and bass pedals.  The deal was to good to pass up. Moving it was fine till we hit the stairs and I was on the up end as we were taking it out to the driveway. It would have been fine except the seller helping me move it on the bottom was moving too quickly and knocked me over  two times.  Not a good feeling to be squished under a hammond even in a chop form.

This is going to be a fun project to restore to working order.  The chop is from a model bv. It has a percussion kit  already installed which adds the percussion switches one would find on a real b3. It has ratchet drawbars which is the older style and not the smooth style but those can easily be replaced. The cabinet is about an 8 condition on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest.  The guts appear to be in good shape and it already has an added percussion kit so it will be so close to a real b3 that most will not notice.  I am sure it needs hammond oil which I can put in at work as  we gots it. Oh man... I love the sound of a real hammond and lesslie.  Laurens Hammond would disagree with me as he felt the leslie ruined the sound of his organs.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Congrats! I guess you'll see most of the connectors (looks like there's hundreds of them!) need cleaning. That makes a huge difference in sound. You may also have to recap the machine. Enjoy!

 

[pucho812]

I have in my lifetime maintained several hammonds for friends and studios they were the following models  b3,c3, m3, bcv, cv, a-100'. I am not afraid.  Most recently I worked on the boss's m3 adding in a leslie kit so he could run his 122 Leslie with it.  This will be a fun restoration recaps are all part of it. 

 

[pucho812]

according to the serial number this organ was  made  in the year of 1947.    Still runs like a champ.  The volume pedal was  fixed in such a way to runs out to a 1/4" jack and plugs right in. Hmmmmmmm Nice...