Weekday
The feature page of the University Daily Kansan
Monday, May 5, 1980
Pipe organs built by local artisans
Photos by DAVE KRAUS
Bob Paterson cuts the mouth of an organ pipe. The pipes are made of a soft oil, so a sharp knife does the job. Each hole must be filled with air to maintain uniform sound from the finished organ.
Tucked away in a three-story green building at 11b and New Hartford street, 70 men and women quietly work at a craft shop that serves the neighborhood.
"We're a clandestine group," joked Alan Fisher, manager of personnel and service for the Reuter Pipe Organ Co.
Although Ruter employees rarely, if ever, wear black hooded robes and sing Gregorian chants, they carry on a tradition of pipe playing in the area.
Founded in 1917 by A.C. Reuter and Albert Sabol, the company was established in Lawrence in 1929, shortly after it delivered an organ to local Masonic Temple and decided to move into the Warner Wilder Brothers, shirt factory at 612 New Hampton.
"We build everything here from start to finish," said Max Mayse, technical representative. Reer organs are custom-designed and built by hand. Twenty-five to 80 are produced each year. However, some go to universities, colleges, and private homes.
NO TWO are alike
"You just won't walk in here and say, 'I'll take the small one in the corner.' " Fisher said.
Each organ design is a product of the buyer's needs, space requirements, and budget.
An old wall map in Fisher's office is studied with red, white and blue paints, each representing one of the more than 2,000 Reuter books.
The pins span from coast-to-coast on the map, from one for an orbital at Rodeo Beach, Calif., to one for a huge organ at the Old Rockefeller Center.
Several pins are clustered around Lawrence, because four organs in Murphy Hall, including the organ at Swarthout Recital Center, were stabbed.
The pipes used by the company are made of an alloy of tin and lead. The sound holes, or mouths, are then cut to exact size by hand.
Organ building is a complex task.
"There's an art to it," said Mayse. "You've got the casework people working with the various types of wood. You've got the people that have to work with the metals for the pipes, the vacuums, the millwork and the people who put the whole thing together to make it work."
EACH COMPONENT is band-made, starting with the pipes, which are made at Reuter's North Lawrence plant. Some are crafted from an alloy of lead and tin; larger pipes, from zinc or copper; from such select woods as juan and walnut.
Story by GREG RICHARDS
Like something out of a late night monster movie, the latest project at the Reuter Organ Company dominates the company's main assembly room. The room is three stories high, but in the nast the company has made organs so large they won't fit inside.
"Although the workmanship makes the organ operate, it's the materials that make it work. Say Made, 'Yo can skimp a knife.'"
After the pipes are formed, the voicers assume the arduous task of giving each set, or rank of pipes, its own characteristic tone or
A pipe organ is typically equipped with several "voices" or stops, each requiring a rank of pipes, one for each of the 61 keyboard notes. Thus, an organ with a moderate number of stops, 20, will have at least 1200 pipes.
Each Reater voicer must have received a bachelor's degree in organ, because he is primarily responsible for the sound of the organ.
The voicer alters the mouth and foot hole of a wind, or "flue," pipe to vary its tone, and adjusts the length to tune the pitch. Other types of pipes are called reeds, which have a vibrating tongue similar to orchestral reed instruments.
Fisher said that the building and installation procedure could take up fourteen months, and that the costs of workmanship are also high.
Mayse estimated that a pipe organ costs about $5,000 per stop, and that economies forced many small churches to buy all-electronic organs, which synthesize the tones and pitches of an organ's sound.
But pipe organ builders place great pride in the tradition of their craft.
"I think ours is the finest one built," said Mayse. "Otherwise, I wouldn't be here."
Doug Dubis shapes the pieces for an organ of the future in the company's basement woodshop. Employees make every part from raw materials except for several small items bought out of town suppliers.
Assembly room foreman Bill Stephens checks blueprints for the company's latest effort, the organ standing behind him. Standing nearly 30 feet tall, the organ is designed for a church in the basement.