A friend gave me this. He does not know what it is. It has a reed headpiece and looks like it was meant to make a sound. I rigged up a plastic mouthpiece and when I blew into it it made a sound like an oboe. The cylinder slides. I thought it may have been some sort of wolf whistle, but pulling the "chimney stack" out or in only changed the pitch a little. It will also make a sound if a vacuum is placed on the outlet port. Any guesses?
Have you tried moving the wire part that presses on the reed in and out? It looks like that should change the pitch.
Yes, it does look like it could change the pitch, but the wire stay does not slide - maybe frozen up? The round br*** barrel that holds the reed looks like it may have been inserted in a hole, maybe like a manifold fitting??
Looks like some type of pipe organ piece. If that piece with the soldered ****** fits over the reed part snugly that would be the air intake. The metal rod is how it was tuned.
I found some pictures of pipe organ parts that look similar. Part of article says: In the Summer of 2017 several reed stop pipes were removed from two concert organs for a complete restoration, by Fred Oyster of Ohio. https://organ.music.unt.edu/concert-organ-reed-pipes-get-tlc-restoration How Organ Pipes Produce Different Sounds https://hardmanwurlitzer.com/pipes/ About twenty years ago I helped a few guys dismantle an old church pipe organ that was to be repaired and re***embled in our home church. I was entrusted with dusting off and packing what seemed like a couple hundred sound pipes that we were going to haul back home. There was plenty of vintage dust (patina?) to be removed form those pipes. I guess some of that patina rubbed off on me and the guys nicknamed me Dusty. Some of the "pipes" were metal tubes of various lengths and diameters. Others were long wooden box shapes. Pressing an organ key sent an electircal signal to open a valve (solenoid?) at the bottom of a sound pipe. Air flowed through the pipe to make the desired sound. I wish I had pictures and could remember more of the details. Interesting that so many different sounds can be produced without using electronics.
That’s funny, I did the same thing in the 70’s. They were refurbishing the Thomas Circle Church in Washington and my company was putting in new AC. They brought some guy in from Europe to restore the organ and we all helped dismantle and re***emble the pipes. Some sections took several guys to handle safely. I recently heard that they were going to turn the Church into office space but don’t know if it ever panned out. Some pics off the web. In the last pic you can see some of the Rosetta’s in the ceiling. The dark background ones were the air ducts for the AC. Those ******s were heavy and awkward. Two guys, one holding it up while the other secured it. We took turns, LOL
Well, it sure does look like it belongs to some kind of organ. I may find a place for it on a hot rod sometime. Thanks to you all for the insight. It is a shame that some of those organs will be taken out of service and the churches re-puropsed into something else. But I digress...
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