On the job.COLUMN: ON THE JOB Stefan Maier Pipe organ tuner An electronic part of a radio or TV that locks on to a selected carrier frequency (station, channel) and filters out the audio and video signals for amplification and display. and rebuilder Tracker Organs, Orange Age: 47 Town of residence: Orange Native of: Dunningen, Germany Family: Married, 3 children Time in current job: 15 years What do you do? "I have been tuning organs since I was 20 years old, and I started the business in Orange 15 years ago. Mainly we tune, service and maintain tracker organs, like this one we are servicing today in St. Joseph's Chapel (at the College of Holy Cross). This organ was one of the first jobs I had in Massachusetts. We come here at least six times a year to maintain it. The other part of the business is rebuilding organs. The last big job we had was finished last October where we added a third manual (keyboard) to a 2 manual Steere & Turner organ in Willimantic, Connecticut. That was a 10 month job, and we basically enlarged that organ by 30 to 40 percent." What is a tracker organ? "Trackers are quarter-inch wooden pieces, that can be anywhere from a few inches long to 15 feet long that connect the keys of the organ to the valves that release air to the pipes." How big or small are the pipes? "Pipes can be a couple inches high up to 30 feet high." How did you enter this field? "I discovered this by accident although I am following the family tradition of woodworking. At the time, I was working for a church in Germany and was asked to pick up a display cabinet that a member of the church had made. He was an organ builder. I walked into the factory and there was an organ ready to be shipped. I was very impressed with that." Skills, training needed? "In Germany, an organ builder is a professional trade, like hairdresser or mechanic, and I signed an apprenticeship apprenticeship, system of learning a craft or trade from one who is engaged in it and of paying for the instruction by a given number of years of work. The practice was known in ancient Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as in modern Europe and to some extent contract with a company for 3-1/2 years. Apprenticeship includes 12 weeks per year of schooling. It was low wages but good training. At the end we had exams, theoretical and practical, where you had to build something. I made a small organ with 7 pipes. Then I moved to the U.S. to Eugene, Oregon The city of Eugene is the county seat of Lane County, Oregon, United States. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about 60 miles (100 km) east of the Oregon Coast. , where there was a very good organ builder. Other skills you need-woodworking, sheet metal, metal fabrication fabrication (fab´rikā´sh  n),n the construction or making of a restoration. , low voltage Low voltage is an electrical engineering term that broadly identifies safety considerations of an electricity supply system based on the voltage used. While different definitions exist for the exact voltage range covered by "low voltage", the most commonly used ones include "mains electricity, acoustics acoustics (ək  `stĭks) [Gr.,=the facts about hearing], the science of sound, including its production, propagation, and effects. , music theory, mechanical engineering and leather
working."
Leather working? "The bellows bellows, expansible, gas-tight chamber used to pump or store a gas. One of the simplest and most familiar types of bellows is the manual one used for providing a forced draft to a fire. The expansible chamber consists of a leather bag with pleated sides. in a pipe organ that are needed to produce and regulate the wind pressure need flexible joints, therefore the leather. Leather is also needed to make tight seals and leather is the part of the organ that deteriorates the fastest. In the cities, you might have to replace the leather parts every 30 or 40 years, in the country, 100 years or more. Templeton has an organ that has the original leather from over 100 years ago. If they don't feed the church mice they will pay dearly for that!" Strange things you have found in organs or pipes? "One of the peculiarities of this organ (at St. Joseph's Chapel) is the moths This is an incomplete list of species of Lepidoptera that are commonly known as moths. Large and dramatic moth species
An aeroelastic self-excited vibration with a sustained or divergent amplitude, which occurs when a structure is placed in a flow of sufficiently high velocity. Flutter is an instability that can be extremely violent. down to the bottom and I have to pull them out. Also, birds, they get into a church and fall into the pipes. We did take one out alive, but most of them are not by the time I get to them. One time we opened the door up in the steeple and out flies an owl owl, common name for nocturnal birds of prey found on all continents. Owls superficially resemble short-necked hawks, except that their eyes are directed forward and are surrounded by disks of radiating feathers. , he must have been as scared of me as I was of him!" Old or famous organs that you have worked on? "We service the organ at Old North Church in Boston. It still has some of the original parts, but it is mostly casework case·work n. Social work devoted to the needs of individual clients or cases. case  work . The Mechanics
Hall Mechanics Hall (and variants Mechanic's Hall and Mechanics' Hall) may refer to:
Best part of your job? "There are always new challenges. It's never the same each day." Worst part of your job? "Working on old instruments that haven't been cleaned in 50 years, with no lights, no space to move, that can be irritating. Sometimes you have to work on an old organ and have to slide past mouse skeletons and work by feel." What have you learned from this job? "The longer we do maintenance on an instrument, the better we get to know it. Each instrument is custom built and different. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. The better you get to know an instrument, the more efficient it's tuning and service work will be." Compiled by: Correspondent Lynne Klaft To be featured in or to suggest a job profile, send information to Bob Kievra, Telegram & Gazette, Box 15012, Worcester, MA 01615-0012, or send an e-mail to rkievra@telegram.com. ART: PHOTO CUTLINE: Stefan Maier of Orange, who tunes and maintains organs, holds one of almost 3,000 reed pipes from the tracker organ at the College of the Holy Cross The College of the Holy Cross is an exclusively undergraduate Roman Catholic liberal arts college located in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. Holy Cross is the oldest Roman Catholic college in New England and one of the oldest in the United States. in Worcester. PHOTOG pho·tog n. Informal A person who takes photographs, especially as a profession; a photographer. : T&G Staff/CHRISTINE PETERSON |
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