On May 10, 6:05*am, wrote:
I'm hoping to build a small pipe organ this summer, and as well as a
rank of wooden pipes, I would like to make a set of small metal ones.
The largest would be 2', going down to a few inches. *The trouble is
that most organ builders cast their own mixture of lead and tin for
pipe building, which I don't belive is comercially available. *Can
anyone suggest another sheet metal that is:

Easily worked
Solders well with an iron
Isn't too hard to get hold of
Isn't going to break the bank

Sorry if this is the wrong group; many thanks.

There's a multi-volume set on organ construction you might look up at
a larger library via interlibrary loan, apparently the proportions of
lead and tin have a fairly large effect on the sound of the pipes. The
higher the tin content, the better the sound, up to a point. Too high
a tin content and you get "tin disease" and the pipes will fall apart
with temperature change. I'm sure this alloy isn't available
commercially as sheet, it's relatively easy to make up, after all.
There are several books out there on past and present practice of pipe
construction, you need a stone table long as the longest pipe and
wider than the circumference of the widest one. A sliding trough is
used to cast the molten alloy as it's slid down the table. Different
thicknesses of sheet are used for the different pipe pitches. One
documentary on one of the cable channels showed constructors doing
this. Apparently wrought metal sounds different than cast. You could
use tin or brass sheet, but the sound would probably be more like a
whistle than an organ. For short stuff like you want, you could
probably knock together a sliding trough out of pine and use a
tombstone reject or maybe a cheap Chinese surface plate(almost the
same thing).

Stan