Mustel model K

Bonjour,

hello to all - I am new to this forum. My French is so bad that I will write in English - hope that´s ok for you. However, my French is good enough to understand the messages (with the help of an dictionnary), so don´t hesitate to answer in French.

I was lucky enough to be able to buy a Mustel harmonium recently. It has the following ranks:

Forte Fix
Metaphone
Prolongement
Forte expressive
C Contrebasse 16'
5 Harpe eolienne 2'
4 Basson 8'
3 Clairon 4'
2 Bourdon 16 '
1 Cor anglais 8'
1P Percussion ou Cor anglais 8'
Expression
1P Percussion ou Flute 8'
1 Flute 8'
2 Clarinette 16'
3 Fifre 4'
4 Hautbois 8'
5 Musette 16'
6 Voix celeste 16'
7 Missing (I guess Baryton 32')
8 Harpe eolienne 8'
Forte expressive
Metaphone
Forte fixe

In the Gellerman database I found a picture which is probably from a catalogue from 1910. In this picture it is called model K. The case looks exactly like my instrument.

Unfortunately the Mustel is not working right now. I don't think there is a big damage since most parts look ok. Of course I would like to have it restored. Any recommendations?

Yours

Christoph

It's not a problem you write in english. Personnaly my english is very bad but I will try in this language.

You're the lucky owner of a beautyfull Mustel Kunstharmonium, an instrument I dream one day to have in my collection. Your model is complete because you can play all the litterature. Very precious. You have all the stops an accessories which are necessary to play the music of Guilmant, Mouquet, Mustel and Karg-Elert. This four composers used all the possibilities of the Kunstharmonium and I wish you a lot of musical hours.

The 7 stop of trebble is so you expect a "baryton 32" very interesting as solo stop.

You said this harmonium doesn't in good fonction. We can't give you any recommandation without pictures of your instrument. Can you take pics to insert in your next posts in order to the members can see mechanics, bellows, reeds?

Thank you!

Dear Olivier,
thank you for your response. You can really write in French, with the help of an dictionnary and some memorys of the four years of French in school I can understand it....

I have taken a closer look at the instrument. One thing that is really broken is a wire on the right top side of the instrument (visible on the first picture, the same wire on the other side is ok and in place.) On the next picture you see some little parts that are out of shape / crooked. We realized that it is not possible to close one big hook on the right side of the instrument. It is the one that closes the box that has the reeds. I guess it would be a good reason why the instrument does´t work (if it is not airtight).
However, I have the impression that the biggest problem is that pulling the stops doesn´t seem to result in any action - it is very easy, and one has the impression that nothing happens. I carefully tried to open that part of the harmonium, but it is not so easy, something is holding it. Maybe one has to loose some screws or so. I stopped trying since I dont want to break anything. I will try to have an expert look at it. The instrument is located in Heidelberg, Germay - if one of you wants to have a look at it let me know.

Yours

Christoph

I forgot a picture of the reeds....

1° Si le crochet ne peut pas être armé, il est sûr que l'instrument perd du vent, ce qui n'est effectivement pas bien.
2° Si le sommier n'est pas bien à plat, il se peut que les excentriques des registres n'appuient pas sur les platines qui commandent les soupapes de registres.
3° Le bourrelet bleu de peau sur la table des registres a l'air fort abimé sur tout le tour extérieur. S'il ne remplit pas bien son office, du vent communique entre les différentes cases de registres, d'où cette impression qu'aucun jeu ne fonctionne.

A mon avis deux choses sont à vérifier en priorité :
- que le sommier soit bien plan (s'il est voilé, des travaux importants sont à envisager).
- que l'étanchéité du sommier est la cause de la perte de vent. Remontez le circuit de la soufflerie (avec et sans expression simple et double), vérifiez les peaux des pompes, les éclisses des soufflets, les portevents, la caisse à vent, les soufflets et soupapes de double expression. S'il y a des fuites, elles doivent être colmatées.

Désolé de ne pouvoir être plus précis...

Such a nice instrument !
I bet the leather of the blue gasket stuck on the upper part, at the front of the instrument, if I'm right. This can lead to the chest not being able to be closed. You can check the leaks by having someone pumping while passing your hand around the chest, but no doubt : if it doesn't close, that's the first point to solve.
Furthermore, if the chest does not close properly, the stop action is unlikely to work.
You can try to remove the leather sutck on the upper part, and see if it closes.

The pumps does not seem in too bad condition, that's a good point. Reeds seems to be all original, as far as I can tell on pictures...
Really a great instrument !

Bonsoir,

a Swiss expert solved the main problem by just looking at the pictures! The problem was that somebody had taken out some of the wooden boards that seperate the cases of the different ranks, left them lying outside and closed the box! You can see the wooden boards lying on the blue gasket on the left side of the forth picture from the top! I am glad that it looks like nothing was seriously damaged (surprisingly). I put the wooden parts back to the places where they belong, and now it was easy to close the instrument. And voila, it is playing, and the different stops are working again.

However, there is the next problem: even if I don´t pull any stops and don´t press any keys some tones are playing. It looks like there are from stop number 1. In an organ we call that "Heuler" in German. But I hope we will find a solution for that.

Even with this noise the different stops sound just wonderful. Its the first time I hear a Mustel "live" and I am really stunned.

Thank you for your responses

Yours

Christoph

Voilà une bonne nouvelle. En regardant bien, effectivement, on voit que des planches entre les casiers des dessus avaient été enlevées (entre le 4 et le 8 dans les dessus, entre le 5 (?) et le 7 (?) toujours dans les dessus). C'était donc les planches déposées qui gênaient la fermeture du sommier...

Pour ce qui est des cornements (sifflements), regardez si le registre est bien étanche (frottez la peau de la soupape de registre avec une brosse à dent, regardez la tension du ressort qui la plaque sur la table). Vérifiez également que la platine qui transmet le mouvement du tirant de registre n'est pas trop vissée (et donc qu'elle maintient la soupape légèrement ouverte). Après pour les notes, pareil : brossez les peaux des soupapes et voyez si les ressorts n'ont pas besoin d'être un peu retendus.

Vous avez vraiment là un bel instrument!

About the N°1 cyphers, it may also find it's origin in the bent bits shown on the picture you published.
You have to make sure it's the same notes.
These tiny things do actionnate the percussion on the n°1. If they are bent, the percussion system may not work on these notes and they also may have the N°1 pallets not closing properly. It can take very very few opening to make a cypher.

Becarefull not to try to unbent them roughly. I don't know what this metal is, but old metal generaly don't like bending and unbending, and finally breaks. It may be possible to unscrew the leather bolt and the wood cylinder, see if it solves the problem.
Gently dismantling all the pallets and brushing them with a toothrush is generally a good idea too.

Just a detail : on your picture, it seems that the damaged notes have the red felt washer under the brass flat spring. It should be above, as it is on the untouched ones. I have been explained recently how to regulate this part of the harmonium action, I'll post about it soon.

Christoph,

The best you can do, close to home at Heibelberg is to contact Markus Lenter of Lenter Orgelbau. He has a website, so he is easy to find.

He is a very, very skilled harmonium restorer, I was in his Werkstatte only a year ago, many harmoniums of various brands.

He has so many it took me two hours to make all the photos I wanted.

http://www.orgelbau-lenter.de/


Cheers,

Frans
Die Niederlände
www.harmoniumnet.nl

Last week I crossed the line: 300 pages now and still building new pages.

@mathieu: you're wrong in two points.
1) the bent wires don't belong to the percussion (these parts seem to be in perfect order) but to «Tal.»; there's even a piece lacking. nevertheless you're right that bad regulation of percussion could cause ciphering of n° 1 (combined with pallet felts eaten away or pallet springs being regulated too softly or bad regulation of the percussion plungers – pictures show that the latter is most probably true).
2) the red washers MUST be between the flat brass spring and the wooden lever in order to prevent the «clicks» of brass and wood. but it's very frequent that someone did it the wrong way around (washer between brass and leather nut).

best wishes

mark richli (so called «swiss expert»)

Dear Mark ;

Thanks for your corrections. But I'm unsure about what you mean by "Tal." ???
About the red washers, I probably understood the wrong way, as the person who explained spoke very rapidly.

By the way, I think a "swiss expert" in harmonium is requiered on another hread of this forum...

dear mathieu

«Tal.» is the abbreviation for the left foot lever (from french «talonnière»). it doesn't show up anywhere on the instrument but it's printed into the music that is explicitly intended for the so called «art harmonium». while pressed to the left, it puts the «prolongement» temporarly out of function. – the bent wire shown on the pics is actually the spring that sets the (lacking) plunger back to resting position.

best wishes

mark

btw.: the material of these wires is tinned brass (hardened). it is indeed tricky to bend them back to their original form, but possible. nevertheless, breakings are frequent (some weeks ago i broke 3 pallet springs of a small french pipe organ from 1882 – built by louis debierre, nantes – while carefully trying to give them back their original form ...)

Welcome to Mark Richli, who's an expert of art harmonium (Mustel, Titz). It's a great chance to have Mark Richli as member!

His website : http://www.harmonium.ch/d/php/home_index.php

(I hope the french translation will be able in few time!)

Au sujet de la talonnière de gauche, effectivement elle stoppe l'action du prolongement. Cependant, pour passer d'une note tenue à la basse à une autre, il n'est pas nécessaire de passer par la talonnière, le passage s'effectue de manière automatique pour autant que le prolongement soit bien réglé, en parfait état et que l'organiste utilise le bon geste pour le mettre en action.

Oh, ok, that's what I thought. In fact, I was trying to describe (awkwardly) the threaded wires with the wooden nut that push down the percussion system and the pallet under each note. They do appear to be more or less bent or messed with on one picture, as you pointed out.
Sorry for my poor technical english. How would you name these parts ?

oh well, these translations. the site waits for them for years now. i'm rather lazy in updating it, anyway

i didn't want to post these 2 réponses here ... – je ne comprends pas le système ...

You have click two time too fast. Corrected.

thanx!

Pour votre information...
un beau MODELE K dans le superbe musée de Mr BOFFARD...
precurseur du modele Studio ...

.

Non... Mr BOFFARD a fourni en location des pianos...des orgues, des harmoniums ... dans la region lyonaise. Il est le pere du tres bon Pianiste Florent BOFFARD - MR BOFFARD est un homme exceptionel, cultivé, savant, une connaissance tres large de tous les claviers depuis Beethoven, Chopin - jusqu au Dereux Philicorda et autres... Piano Harmoniums ... Une visite s'impose - via le syndicat d'initiative de Tarare ...

Today I found the interesting 1910 Mustel catalogue elsewhere on this website. Thanks for posting it! It explains the reasons for buying this model:

"Les modèles qu'on va trouve ci-après (K et O) dont la composition est spécialement étudiée pour l'interprétation de la musique religieuse, possèdent une sonorité très arrondie, envelopée, puissante et profonde".

It also mentions that these church instruments are available with transpositeur (like the instrument I have).

The model offered in the catalogue has only the typical 4 jeux + Voix celeste 8' and Harpe Eolienne 8', while my instrument has all the typical ranks of an "Harmonium d'Art". I wonder for whom this instrument has been made - for an organist in a church who wanted a bigger instrument, or a private person who liked the more modest design of the model K....

Mark Richli has made the instrument playable, and it is a wonderful instrument. However, the instrument needs a full restauration. I have never played a "regular" model mustel, so I cannot tell if there is really a difference.

By the way, the serial number is 2412–1255; according to Mark Richli it is probably from 1914.