
After months of planning and design I'm finally putting together my dream console. As so many forum members are so helpful in sharing advice and suggestions I hope I can repeat the favour and give a little inspiration to others who might yet be contemplating something similar.
The ultimate goal is to have a four manual console with four Fatar TP60 keyboards, twin 1920x1080 resolution touchscreens, a central digital music monitor, two expression pedals and decorative feature towers either side that conceal the speakers behind a row of dummy pipes.
So far the computer has arrived (24GB i7 with twin hard drives configured as RAID-0), plus the monitors, a rather nice solid oak pedalboard and bench from an old Compton electronic organ, and the keyboards. Here's my first mock-up of the touchscreens - I designed the user interface myself using j-organ to control Hauptwerk.

Next up was the construction of a desk using oak veneered MDF:

Biggest headache was always going to be the construction of the keycheeks since I had no idea prior to starting how I should go about hollowing out the wood. In fact I live next door to a friendly joiner's firm, and they very kindly allowed me to pop in to use their mortiser, plane and sander to ensure that the keycheeks are all identical dimensions. This is critical to having an attractive and stable set of keyboards. For those not familiar with such things, a mortiser is very like a large mounted drill, the essential differences being that the item you drill into can be moved side to side and forward and backwards, and the drill itself punches square holes rather than round. Really handy tool, I'm surprised how much hassle it saved me.

The profile of the Fatar keyboards differs slightly on either side, hence why the left hand side requires a slightly different profile.

Then (being very careful to ensure holes were only drilled in the concealed parts of the keycheeks) I lined up each keycheek using the same spacer, cut to the exact length of the keyboard overhang (60mm high by 110mm deep) and drilled from lower to higher in order to securely stack the keyboards. Conversely the keyboards themselves screw into the keyboard that they sit on, rather than into the keycheeks adjacent to them.

Here's my first attempt at aligning the keyboards - already it's starting to look like an organ!

And then it all has to come apart again to insert the thumbrails where the pistons will go...and be reassembled to ensure it fits...and be taken apart to be stained, and reassembled again...
Next off is the mount for the touch screen monitors. It's a simple pine frame, with a hinged back to all;ow the monitor to be removed easily. You can't see the front panel yet, which is a thin panel of oak veneered MDF with a hole cut the exact size of the monitor (HP 2310ti).

More details to follow!
The ultimate goal is to have a four manual console with four Fatar TP60 keyboards, twin 1920x1080 resolution touchscreens, a central digital music monitor, two expression pedals and decorative feature towers either side that conceal the speakers behind a row of dummy pipes.
So far the computer has arrived (24GB i7 with twin hard drives configured as RAID-0), plus the monitors, a rather nice solid oak pedalboard and bench from an old Compton electronic organ, and the keyboards. Here's my first mock-up of the touchscreens - I designed the user interface myself using j-organ to control Hauptwerk.

Next up was the construction of a desk using oak veneered MDF:

Biggest headache was always going to be the construction of the keycheeks since I had no idea prior to starting how I should go about hollowing out the wood. In fact I live next door to a friendly joiner's firm, and they very kindly allowed me to pop in to use their mortiser, plane and sander to ensure that the keycheeks are all identical dimensions. This is critical to having an attractive and stable set of keyboards. For those not familiar with such things, a mortiser is very like a large mounted drill, the essential differences being that the item you drill into can be moved side to side and forward and backwards, and the drill itself punches square holes rather than round. Really handy tool, I'm surprised how much hassle it saved me.

The profile of the Fatar keyboards differs slightly on either side, hence why the left hand side requires a slightly different profile.

Then (being very careful to ensure holes were only drilled in the concealed parts of the keycheeks) I lined up each keycheek using the same spacer, cut to the exact length of the keyboard overhang (60mm high by 110mm deep) and drilled from lower to higher in order to securely stack the keyboards. Conversely the keyboards themselves screw into the keyboard that they sit on, rather than into the keycheeks adjacent to them.

Here's my first attempt at aligning the keyboards - already it's starting to look like an organ!

And then it all has to come apart again to insert the thumbrails where the pistons will go...and be reassembled to ensure it fits...and be taken apart to be stained, and reassembled again...
Next off is the mount for the touch screen monitors. It's a simple pine frame, with a hinged back to all;ow the monitor to be removed easily. You can't see the front panel yet, which is a thin panel of oak veneered MDF with a hole cut the exact size of the monitor (HP 2310ti).

More details to follow!