After an extended trip to the organ version of the dentist, the area's largest working pipe organ is now shiny and in a week will debut a clean sound that harks back to its origins.

Built in 1935, the East Liberty Presbyterian Church Aeolian-Skinner was in bad need of repair from the typical wear and tear an organ receives over time. In January 2006, the organ-building firm of Goulding & Wood disassembled the massive organ piece by piece and took it to its shop in Indianapolis. Nearly 8,000 pipes made the trip.

"This is the first major renovation of the organ," said the Rev. J. Richard Szeremany, church organist and director of worship, music and the arts. He said the entire tab for the project came to $1.5 million.

The firm repaired and cleaned the thousands of pipes, some 32 feet long, also adding 10 ranks to number a total of 120. Then this summer, about 15 of the firm's artisans worked long hours six days a week to painstakingly return them to the chambers above the church's chancel. They began in July with half of the pipes, and installed the rest in August and this month.

After fine-tuning the pipes and adding new wind chests, bellows, electrical switching and a four-manual (keyboard) console -- moveable so the organist can be brought into view during recitals and services -- the firm declared the instrument fit to go.

The East Liberty Presbyterian instrument not only has the most pipes of any organ in the area, but it has a distinctive quality the church wished to maintain throughout the refurbishing. "The renovation honors the original intent of the Aeolian-Skinner," the Rev. Szeremany said.

The Rev. Szeremany is thrilled with the result. "The clarity of the ensemble of the pipes I have heard -- the warmth of the soft flutes and strings -- we didn't have that before," he said. "There is a richness that wasn't there."

He is particularly satisfied with the repair of the organ's string division. "Not everyone can afford a string division, and ours had fallen on hard times technically," he said. "That is something to anticipate hearing."

The congregation will get the chance to hear the organ's fresh sound at the 10:45 a.m. Sanctuary service next Sunday. The Rev. Szeremany will give a recital at 4 p.m. Oct. 14, and a concert with instrumentalists will take place 7 p.m. Oct. 28. For more information, call 412-441-3800.