Why save the documents?

When we first saw the documents, they were in thirteen metal filing cabinets, in a building that was two days from being completely gutted. Every drawer in every cabinet was packed with drawings of Wurlitzer keyboard and organ parts. Some of the drawers were neatly organized with hanging file folders. The rest were just stuffed wherever they fit.

As we looked through the drawers, we saw information that we never dreamed that we would have: dimensions of parts, their material composition, place of manufacture, etc. When you repair keyboards, you always dread running into the fabled unobtanium part—something that you can’t replace for love or money. But if you have the specs, you can find or make an equivalent part. The documents in the drawers promised to make every Wurlitzer keyboard repairable again.

So, we bought the documents—because, if we didn’t, they would have been destroyed. We’ve been storing them safely ever since. It’s nice to keep historical documents safe. But we can do even better by digitizing them, so that they can help anyone who wants to repair or make music with vintage Wurlitzer keyboards.

The collection:

It is difficult to estimate how many documents are in the collection, because they range in size from 8.5”x11” to 36”x48”. It is very likely that we have more than 100,000 pages in the collection.

Most of the documents are engineering drawings. Many of the drawings also include additional pages, such as

  • the quantity of parts purchased, and on what dates

  • quality reports detailing problems with the parts

  • correspondence between the Wurlitzer Co. and the manufacturer

  • test procedures and transistor curves

  • sample parts

This information provides valuable insights about the parts that anyone attempting to repair or maintain a keyboard can learn from. For example, quality reports describe manufacturing challenges that can illuminate known quirks of the keyboard, or help people who want to manufacture exact replacements.

The plan:

We plan to digitize everything. In our years of repairing vintage Wurlitzer electronic pianos, we’ve learned that every part is important, no matter how minor it may look. Wurlitzer was a for-profit company, and they didn’t waste money adding unnecessary parts! Even something as small as a screw or a square of felt can throw off the stability of the keyboard and make it noisy or difficult to play.

It’s obvious that some Wurlitzer keyboards and organs have more monetary value than others—but we’re taking the stance that all of the documents are equally important. What makes a keyboard “valuable” is mostly arbitrary and subject to trend—but one critical factor is whether it can be fixed when the rare parts inside inevitably die. Nobody wants to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on an old instrument that may permanently break at any moment!

Making these documents available will make it a lot easier to repair less common Wurlitzer models, which will hopefully inspire people to fix them, play them, discover new sounds and make more cool music.

How to help:

The cost of storing and digitizing documents includes:

Donations help us continue scanning, storing, and sorting the documents, so that we can preserve this valuable information. We appreciate it so much!

We also accept donations on GoFundMe. If you have unused manila file folders or other supplies that you would like to donate, please contact us.

3% Cover the Fee

More details about our expenses:

Folders: Folders are our biggest expense right now. The purpose of the folders is to protect the documents so that they don’t get folded or creased. We have also been labeling the folders, so it is possible to find the original document after it has been scanned. Although it would be preferable to store the documents in acid-free archival folders, they are much more expensive (at nearly $3 per folder!). If we raise enough money, we are certainly open to switching to archival folders, but right now regular folders are the best way to keep the documents safe in the short term.

Bankers’ boxes: All documents are currently in bankers’ boxes. We have removed all of the documents from their original folders because it is easier to scan and sort them (and also because they had a strong musty smell, and were covered in a fine dust that flew everywhere when the folders were opened). We currently have around 70 bankers’ boxes. Each bankers’ box can store up to 2,500 pages—but folders take up a lot of space, so once all of the documents are in folders, we will probably need over 200 boxes total.

Storage fees: The files are stored safely indoors, but we would like to get them in a storage facility that is more appropriate for archival documents. Preferably, we will have a storage space that is willing to negotiate a long-term rate, since the cost of storage increases every few months. (Our previous storage space ultimately cost $300/mo.) We will also need more square footage very soon, since the documents take up much more space when they are in folders.

Scanners: We are currently scanning with a Plustek OpticPro A320E, which has a maximum scanning size of 12”x17”. This is suitable for around 60% of the documents, but there are many useful pages that are much larger. To digitize the larger papers, we will need either another scanner, or we could pay a scanning service. Right now, in order to obtain the best-quality scans possible, we are scanning at the maximum resolution of 800 dpi. This makes each 8.5”x11” scan around 170 MB. Not only is this a very large file, but it takes it takes at least 50 seconds per scan.

Office space for scanning: We are currently scanning in an office space that we rent monthly, which is close to our repair workshop. We originally intended to use the office for restoration projects, but, because it is a small office (around 200 square feet) and our scanner is very large, the room is now almost entirely dedicated to scanning. We have had people offer to help us scan—which we are very grateful for—but we would probably need to rent additional space in order to accommodate any volunteers. Of course, the more people who are scanning, the faster we can complete the project! If our budget allows, we would absolutely acquire additional space for scanning.

Digital file storage: Since the scanned files are so large, they have been quickly filling up our hard drives and cloud storage accounts. We will need a long term solution that will provide both file storage and secure backups that we can count on. We are still researching our options, but it will likely be an ongoing expense.