Hi Austin766,
For me, you really hit a nerve! For all the younger guys out there who enjoy tuning; enjoy the challenges of tuning complex mixtures; especially those that love to pull an entire plenum together so not a note wavers!.... etc. etc., there is a certain inner reward that comes from a successful tuning job. But after 50 years of tuning organs, one looses his enthusiasm for even standing on his head to reach those tiney little pipes under the perch board. Especially when they are super octave pipes, and you've already tuned 61 of them, and have twelve more to go! I fully agree with Don Furr and Soubasse32. While most organs are laid out with fairly generous walkboards, perch boards, etc., there are a few that I want to murder the engineer that laid out the design of the instrument. I have a Holtkamp that you must tune through the shutters. The chest is six stops deep, and it's all you can do to reach the back row of pipes with a VERY long tuning iron. After you've tuned the whole division, you have to go back through it and correct all the mutations that tend to draw with some of the "bossy" flutes and principals. And for sure, I do that first (!) before starting on the mixture work. It's not much fun tuning a mixture through the shades!
Then there's Moller. Moller built as many stops as they could cram onto a chest or into a division swell box! I have one that I must unrack half the stops to get to the back half. I have another Moller that has a Rohrflote buried between 8' stops. I must reach over two 8' stops to reach it, and then there are two more 8' stops behind it. To make matters worse, the two bottom octaves of this division are planted in minor thirds, (I don't know why...it's supposed to save some room I guess), and it just makes a nightmare for the note holder to figure out what key to press next! But my most classic Moller of all.....has an exposed Great 18 feet off the floor. The Great Trumpet is on the very back of the chest. What ivory tower engineer sat up all night and figured this one out? The first option to tune the Trumpet is....unrack the great chest, (where the heck do you put a four rank mixture when it's the first stop to unrack, and you're standing on a ladder, 18 feet off the floor?), then unrack my tuning stop (4' Octave), and my alternate tuning stop (8' Principal) in order to get to the Trumpet. By then, you've wiped out your tuning stops, so you have to tune the Trumpet to an electronic tuner, then replant the Principals and pretty much follow the same tuning plan...with the electronic tuner. Now if you think tuning a mixture through swell shades is no fun, try tuning all those mixture pipes you've unracked and then replanted. You have to tune them from scratch, standing on a ladder 18 feet up in the air!
The other option, which the tuner before me used, (and the one that I prefer to use) is to go into the Swell (which is placed directly behind the great), reach through the HORIZONTAL! shutters, then through holes that have been torn through the copper screened grill cloth, and tune the Trumpet from there. Everytime, when I get done, I pull back a terribly scratched up arm and hand. Of course, if a speck of debris, or a fly has fallen into the Trumpet and fouled a reed, you usually have no choice but to go through the Great, as afore mentioned, unracking the thing as you move toward the fouled pipe. What a chore! I also have a couple of Moller Artiste organs with a facade. They're relatively easy to get into however. After you remove the facade pipes, you loosen the bottom shutter flanges (these hold the shutter pins in place so they will pivot), pull out the shutter motor coupler dags at the top, unhook the shutter springs, and the whole shutter will come right out! Then you can tune it from the front.
I had an old Pilcher....when you opened the Swell or Choir access door, that's as far as you went! Both divisions were wall to wall pipes. The chests were built chromatic, smallest pipes facing you in the access doorway. There was a stout rope that hung from the ceiling of the expression box. You grabbed the rope with one hand, and tuning iron in the other. You leaned forward, holding on to the rope and keeping your footing sure, behind you. At least it didn't have a mixture in it. Another Pilcher I used to have, had the Swell and Choir boxes so close to the side walls of the organ space that you could get stuck going up or down the ladder to access the entry doors leading into the division boxes.
I have a very fine, and highly regarded Austin here in town that has a one foot square perch in the middle of the Great chest. You climb over one side of the pedal division on a ladder, then descend down another ladder into the Great. As you reach the bottom of the ladder, you can either take one more step (into the 4 rank and 3 rank mixtures,) or you can reach your foot out and step onto the perch. Once you're on the perch, you get into three positions to tune the whole division. Standing, and with a long tuning iron, you can reach the outer 8' basses; (I absolutely HATE to hit those beautiful tuning scrolls with a tuning iron!), then, squatting you can tune the 4' pipes, then balanced on your knees with your legs and feet jutting out behind you, you tune all the pipes underneath your perch, AND (!) the four rank AND (!) the three rank mixtures! Needless to say, in this kneeling position, if you don't stay aware of your legs and feet behind you, your feet will be knocking pipes out of tune as you are tuning pipes in front of you.
Then I have a German tracker that has a SKINNEY, skinney walkboard inside the Great box. (The box I refer to is one of those boxes that have no shutters on the front of them....they just box the whole division in so the sound has only one egress....out the front.) In the meantime, you're in the back of the box, trying to tune the dang thing. This box has one door on the end of the skinney walkboard. You can't squat or kneel down without your butt bending the pipes behind you! And the whole chest is built diatonic, with the treble pipes in the center. So, to make a long cussing session short, you stand and tune all the stops, bending over the little pipes in the center of the chest. It's a real back buster!
But you know, I think the organs I hate to tune the most are the German trackers that have no space built inside the box at all! You would think they would be the easiest, looking at the structure. Just a group of little doors on hinges in the back of the casework. You just open the little doors and tune away. WRONG! Invariably, the mixture is right next to the back doors. When you close those doors, they become a wall. And the wall is so close to the pipes that it acts like a shade, causing those little pipes to go out of tune. Just like when you shade a pipe with your tuning iron. So you spend the better part of your entire tuning visit, opening doors, tweaking the little mixture pipes, closing the door and listening to see if the pipes will be in tune. With some experience, you start listening to the beats of the pipe as you close and open the door. The beating of the pipe will tell you whether to go sharper or flatter, etc. etc.
Mark Twain was quoted as saying, "I'd rather decline a good scotch whiskey than decline a German verb". When I've been asked to consider taking on a new German tracker as a client organ, the first thing I do is have a look at the position of that back wall. If it is too tight, and especially if it has a mixture standing on the other side of that back wall, like Mr. Twain, I decline the offer.
Well, fellow techs, let's hear some of your horrow stories. I just couldn't pass up telling you some of mine. And above all, remember fellow tuners, .........."next" is a four letter word!
Jay Mitchell.
....."next" is a four letter word. Jay999