Hammond C3 c1969 Welsh church, London.

Just one of the Hammond organ restorations that have been completed this year

This was collected by us and all faults reported to client besides the problems they had noticed.

Not starting once started low volume missing notes dull sound etc.

Manuals removed and the foam removed from casing and inside the manuals.

Corrosion in the manual loom caused by the foam degrading. A common problem but not on all post-1964 Hammond organs. There are two types of foam, the foam over the recorder board doesn’t appear to degrade like the manual foam but often Hammond used the same foam on the whole manual section. The foam attacks the enamel on the wire and it gets brittle and notes fail or cross link and cypher notes incorrectly. Moving the Hammond will make the problem worse but the sooner it's removed and restored the better.

Manuals are stripped to keyframes, all contacts are individually cleaned, that is, 1,652 contact points 31 Bussbars. Each key is individually cleaned and polished and is fitted to a set key pressure new felts and man felts.

The motors are removed stripped and restored, scanner the same then reassembled and the Hammond twg is washed and restored, voiced to the manuals its mapped prior to all setting up.

The AO28 is removed and restored, swell housing cleaned and caps measured to tolerance but it's the sound that counts not what the meter says, same as to the valves, new valves aren’t to the same quality as the originals, the materials used are not to the same standard. Trust your ears.

Hammond Pr40: well we have loved these tone cabinets for years. We rebuild the amps all three to the correct spec and more with over 40 mods to them the original diagram was never updated or even correct in the first place. Blame the copyist.

Once all set its soak test and played, appraised, listened to. We leave it running for a few days and listen again. Tweak it here, evaluate and adjust. Once we are happy then it can go back to the client, not until then. Back onto the truck in our flight cases with isolation platforms delivered set up and get the tea. We sit with the client and go through all the work which has been photographed throughout all the restoration. And let them hear the difference a Hammond Hire Company restoration sounds like. As loud as it can be and as quiet as a church mouse.

So when you get a Hammond organ for hire or off eBay and you find it's made of parts and wonder why it just doesn’t sound sweet now you know and it never will, you can’t miss match parts from different years. There are a lot of fake Hammond B3 organs and chop Hammonds in the UK and Europe.