My Studio

[miroslav]

Great news! Congrats! Sounds like you did a better overhaul on yours with the new scrim cloth for the rotating drum and all!

I have neglected to do much more cleaning and maintenance on my Leslie 145, but it just keeps sounding better all the time. I should really dig back into it to keep it up. Haven't been playing it much lately, but when I do, I just love it!

Congrats again Miro! You're gonna love the Leslie.

JB

I went deep... ...into the bowls, found a bunch of dried out chipmunk crap, a few acorns......someone must have had this in a garage at some point, as I doubt there were any chipmunks in the studio where I got it from. It was a bit soiled inside on the wood and some of the amp, not too bad, but after I wiped and vacuumed, it came out unbelievably good. Looks quite newish now...and I'm pretty sure everything is OEM parts...even the tubes are original. The horn belt that I replaced was hanging on by a few threads....otherwise, nothing is beat up, and everything works well for a 50+ year-old Leslie.
I may at some point refinish the outside of the cabinet, it's got its share of scratches to the finish...but right not I'm busy with other stuff.

I'm trying to also find out if there are ways to control the ramp up/down of the rotor and horn...?
Like when I switch from fast to slow...the lower rotor takes a good 4-5 second to hit full speed....but the horn takes only like 1-2 seconds....and then same in reverse when going from fast to slow.
I want to get more of that whoosh with a gradual ramp up/down...but I guess it's all dependent on the motors and the age and what have you. I don't see any type of "control" for that. There are the brake options that let you go from stop to fast and vice versa...and I've seen some kits that give you stop/slow/fast...so you can play through the cab without any spin or with slow/fast spin....but nothing that controls the actual ramp up/down, though I saw people asking about the same thing on some organ/Leslie forums.

I've got some "Leslie style" guitar pedals, and one of them has an input for a control pedal that lets you do that kind of stuff....so that's what made me think of it.

That said...it sounds great even as-is. I'll post a couple of pictures when I get a chance.

 

[einstein magoo]

I went deep... ...into the bowls, found a bunch of dried out chipmunk crap, a few acorns......someone must have had this in a garage at some point, as I doubt there were any chipmunks in the studio where I got it from. It was a bit soiled inside on the wood and some of the amp, not too bad, but after I wiped and vacuumed, it came out unbelievably good. Looks quite newish now...and I'm pretty sure everything is OEM parts...even the tubes are original. The horn belt that I replaced was hanging on by a few threads....otherwise, nothing is beat up, and everything works well for a 50+ year-old Leslie.
I may at some point refinish the outside of the cabinet, it's got its share of scratches to the finish...but right not I'm busy with other stuff.



I'm trying to also find out if there are ways to control the ramp up/down of the rotor and horn...?
Like when I switch from fast to slow...the lower rotor takes a good 4-5 second to hit full speed....but the horn takes only like 1-2 seconds....and then same in reverse when going from fast to slow.
I want to get more of that whoosh with a gradual ramp up/down...but I guess it's all dependent on the motors and the age and what have you. I don't see any type of "control" for that. There are the brake options that let you go from stop to fast and vice versa...and I've seen some kits that give you stop/slow/fast...so you can play through the cab without any spin or with slow/fast spin....but nothing that controls the actual ramp up/down, though I saw people asking about the same thing on some organ/Leslie forums.

I've got some "Leslie style" guitar pedals, and one of them has an input for a control pedal that lets you do that kind of stuff....so that's what made me think of it.

That said...it sounds great even as-is. I'll post a couple of pictures when I get a chance.

Tons and tons of Leslie and Hammond repair, modify, etc. on this site:

https://www.organforum.com/forums/forum.php"

Many suggest replacing the crossover capacitors. They drift severely with age and too much low frequency in your horn driver could cause it to fail and they are expensive and hard to find exact replacements. The caps are cheap and easy to replace.

Just spend a little time on the Leslie forum at this site and search for whatever you want to do. It is normal for the heavy wooden drum to ramp up and down at a slower rate than the horns, and that creates part of the "desirable' REAL Leslie sound. There are some minor adjustments with the belts but I'm happy with mine so haven't messed with that.

 

[miroslav]

Tons and tons of Leslie and Hammond repair, modify, etc. on this site:

https://www.organforum.com/forums/forum.php"

Many suggest replacing the crossover capacitors. They drift severely with age and too much low frequency in your horn driver could cause it to fail and they are expensive and hard to find exact replacements. The caps are cheap and easy to replace.

Just spend a little time on the Leslie forum at this site and search for whatever you want to do. It is normal for the heavy wooden drum to ramp up and down at a slower rate than the horns, and that creates part of the "desirable' REAL Leslie sound. There are some minor adjustments with the belts but I'm happy with mine so haven't messed with that.

Yeah...I've been on that forum a bunch of times already when searching for some info.

I was planning to take a count of the various electrolytic caps in the whole circuit, and get some replacements considering the age of the Leslie.
This was just my first step...getting it all cleaned, belts changed, etc.