Wicks Organ Company

Wicks Organ Company is located in Highland, Illinois, where they build, repair and restore organs.

History

Wicks Organ Company was founded in the early 1900s in a small jewelry and watch making store in Highland. The local priest had asked John Wick to study organ so that he could become the church organist; the parish later decided that they wanted to replace their old reed organ with a pipe organ.

John, Louis, and Adolph Wick, combined their skills in watch making, cabinet making and jewelry to create a small mechanical action organ for the church. Before long, others had heard of this organ, and wanted the Wick brothers to build organs for them. In 1906, the three brothers incorporated as the Wicks Organ Company. They initially produced organs for homes and churches in Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri.

Initially, the company produced mechanical action instruments. When electricity became popular, electric actions and blowers became available. While the company experimented with electro-pneumatic actions, they felt that because of the difficulties of these types of actions to try building organs built with electric actions. They now produce hybrid pipe/electronic organs.

Wicks perfected the electric action in 1914, naming it Direct Electric, which helped to remedy some of the shortcomings of electro-pneumatic actions. The company patented the device in 1922 and an improved version in 1929.

Wicks Organ Company is currently a non-union shop. There is no set payscale for employee wages and benefits are partial. The company has undergone several major changes in management during the last few years due to recent problems in quality and to transition the company to a more electronic solid-state/digital philosophy.

Direct electric action

Prior to 1914, the valve action of pipe organs was limited to mechanical, pneumatic, or electro-pneumatic. As electricity was becoming more common in churches and households, John F. Wick and Dr. Katz, from the University of Illinois, developed a solenoid action. Requiring 15 volts of DC current, the electro-magnetic action operated a single moving armature. The small size, single moving part, and lack of perishable leather in the individual units made them more durable than the alternatives. The first modern style units installed in St. Mary's Church in Union City, Indiana have been working for more than 80 years. Wick's maintains a trademark on the name "direct electric" and is referred to as electro-mechanical.

Improvements to direct electric's design over the years include upgrading the return spring from a flat spring to a coil spring, shortening the armature, lowering the valve height and increasing the pallet thickness, removal of a wooden "stop", addition of the flux bracket to increase the unit's power, the addition of diodes to aid in closing of the valve, changing the paper coating to shrink-wrap plastic, double-coil high-pressure units, and the development of a special "bounceless" unit for use on reeds.

External links

* [http://organ.wicks.com/ Wicks Organ Company]