Tom Newsome (49), a qualified electronics engineer, is the brains behind a tiny company that is manufacturing busker organs (often known as monkey organs after the popular image of moustached Italian men playing them on the streets while monkeys with a tin cup collect donations from appreciative passers by) and selling them to the world.

Castlewood Organs is situated in Mr Newsome's modest Northam home.

But, it has become the source of some of the most acknowledged musical instruments around. Mr Newsome is currently in the United States at a world fair for organ makers (the Music Box Society International Convention) displaying his products and collecting orders.

Mr Newsome's pipe organs are wonderfully melodic and throaty in sound and, with their calliope-like sound, instantly conjure up visions of European fairs.

Already, he has sold 54 of the beautiful and richly-engineered instruments.

Mr Newsome has designed every wooden piece of the machines from scratch using computer drawing software.

A lot of maths goes into the design of the kits, as calculations must be perfect for each flue and pipe dimension and length and the scaling of all the volumes of air required for each of the pipes.

The pieces are laser cut on a precision plotting machine operated by a computer.

The busker organs have 20 organ pipes, a set of bellows, pressure box, and gears and many other pieces and sell for $1461.90 (including GST) in Australia.

In all, the kit contains more than 400 individual parts.

For Mr Newsome to put the kit together for you would cost an extra $2500.

Orders have come from around the world including symphony orchestras in the United States.

The organs come in kit form and take someone with average mechanical ability about 130 hours to assemble.

Part of the fun of the whole process of owning one of these rare items is actually putting the bits together.

From the finest hoop pine veneer timber (especially manufactured for the Castlewood Organs in a special run by a firm in Queensland) Mr Newsome lovingly cuts templates of his intricate design.

The wood is so special that Mr Newsome picks up each shipment in his car from Perth because any untoward couriering could damage the perfect panels. Combined with other parts such as bellows, pipes, handles, frames, covers and specially turned gears and wheels, the kits are complete

"When I was a kid at school in England, I had a mate called Melvin Wright and we used to practice making pipes and mouth organs until one day I thought 'I wonder if I could make an organ pipe'," he said. "So, I made one out of hardboard (Masonite).

"I took it to school and Melvin was rapped in it.

"He got involved in pianolas and eventually into Telecom and became an engineer.

"Eventually he built the world's first computer controlled punch for making organ roll music."

Mr Wright is now the world's foremost authority on organ roll music and Mr Newsome isn't far behind with his organs.

"I'd always had these thoughts and dreams about making a busker organ of my own," Mr Newsome said. "It wasn't until I emigrated to Australia in 1987 and eventually settled in Northam about six years ago that I decided to have a real go at it."

Castlewood Organs began in June 2001 and the first two kits were delivered to the United States.

Kit number one (each is individually numbered) was sold to an American who completed the kit in a fortnight.

Although 54 have been sold since then, they have moved only by word of mouth advertising.

Mr Newsome's current trip to America is his first foray into actually promoting the organs.

The kits would make an amazing project for schools to undertake for science or engineering students. More information about Castlewood Organs can be obtained from Mr Newsome's web site at www.castleorgans.com.au

The site also contains several children's stories about the little wooden man (Henry) who lives inside each Castlewood pipe organ.