Restoration of an antique hand-crank barrel organ

The instrument came down to me from my great-grandfather and has been in the family since the end of the nineteenth century; the stamp inside the case puts it somewhere around the 1890s. It is a mechanical hand-crank organ, about seventy centimetres wide: a pinned wooden barrel, two reed ranks, a feeder bellows with a reservoir, and an oak case with the original dark varnish. For the last thirty years it stood in an unheated country house, and that is exactly what you hear now. The wood has dried out, the leather has gone stiff, and what used to be a clean little waltz has turned into a wheeze with three or four notes missing.

Here is what I can describe from the outside, without taking anything apart. The crank runs unevenly and binds about a third of the way through every turn, as if the drive or the worm is catching on something; I have to push it through by hand, and the tempo sags at that point. The bellows leak audibly along the corner gussets and along one whole seam on the feeder, so pressure drops within a single turn and the quiet notes simply do not speak. Several pins on the barrel are bent or pushed sideways, which throws two phrases of the second tune out of time, and one pin looks to be missing altogether. Five or six pallets stay down after they are lifted, giving a held note that goes on until I stop cranking. The reeds themselves look sound to my untrained eye, but the tuning has clearly wandered and the whole thing sounds flat and tired.

I am not asking for a factory-new instrument, and this is the important part. Please keep the patina: no stripping the varnish back to bare wood, no repainting the case. I would like it cleaned, the lifted veneer at the front left corner consolidated and glued back, and only the spots on the lid where the varnish has flaked down to the wood touched in so they stop catching the eye. In your reply, please tell me what you use for releathering and what grease or oil belongs on a mechanism of this age. I have read too many stories about modern lubricants eating old leather and brass to leave that to chance.

The scope as I see it:

— free up the drive and the crank, find the source of the binding, clean and lubricate with an appropriate period-correct compound
— releather or repair the feeder and reservoir until the bellows hold air through a full turn
— straighten the bent pins on the barrel, replace what is missing, and restore the melody so the phrasing lands where it should
— free the sticking pallets, refit the valve leather, check the whole action for even response
— clean and voice the reed ranks, bring the pitch back to something consistent across both ranks
— regulate loudness and evenness of the crank so it plays steadily at a comfortable hand speed
— clean and stabilise the case while preserving the aged finish

When the work is finished I would like a recording of both tunes, made in your workshop, before the instrument is packed. Nothing elaborate — a phone is fine — but I want to hear how it plays in your hands and compare it with the wheeze I am living with now. Please give me a realistic timeline in your reply: I am not in a hurry, but I would like the instrument back within two weeks of you starting work, and I would rather hear an honest four weeks than an optimistic one. If you find something during disassembly that changes the estimate, write to me before you proceed rather than after.