I would like to introduce myself to this new list. I am Craig Elders from Fort Worth, Texas. I am the Associate Director of Student Affairs for Information Services here at TCU, Texas Christian University. Last May, my new home instrument began playing! That was 5 years after I brought home my first rank of pipes. Eleanor is a classical III/23. I built all my own electro-mechanical chests except for 2 EP chest for the low octaves of my 16' Bourdon and 16' Lieblich Gedeckt. My console is the 1981 Moller console from Orchestra Hall in Chicago. I even wired my own relay, a Z-tronics, from Allen Miller. My combination actions is a Peterson's MSP-1000.
What a wonderful and exciting task/love/joy this has been. A lot of times I would wonder if I had bitten off more than I should. But if you were to come by my house, you will see it is now hard to pry me off the bench! I have a man that is a voicer for one of the local builders doing voicing as his spare time permits. I have many tasks to finish, but again, after so long, it is such a treat to just sit and play. Often people wondered why I did not start playing with just a rank or two and add to that. I don't believe I would have ever finished the organ doing it that way. There are things I needed to "finish" last May that are still on my list. But you know, there is a lot of new music that I am trying to teach Eleanor to play. And since she has to use my fingers to do it, she needs a lot of practicing, a lot!
I have made friends with several local builders. They call me when they need an extra hand. I have got to do a little of everything. From holding notes for tuning and general maintenance to spending days/weeks in chambers doing final tonal finishing. I can never hear exactly what these voicers are hearing. But they yell the instructions to me as I work on the individual pipes. That is something that can only be experienced from "being there". I take my pay in question "answering" and help as I always have a long list of questions. Every once in a while I spend a week of vacation or even a few days at what I call "Camp Garland". That is I spend that time with my organ builder friend Dan Garland. It may be doing shop work, loading up a new instrument, installing, or help on a maintenance call. There is nothing like "on the job training". And nothing like such a wonderful and kind person to learn from.
Plus, I am not sure that my instrument would be working now nor be as successful without the help from so many on the PIPORG-L list. There are so many builders that take the time to help us build our dream. They supply us with answers to a zillion questions, they tell up how to accomplish things without "learning the hard way", the give us encouragement, and many of them are able to supply us the massive amounts of parts we need. I will never be able to show my gratitude to all of them, including the list masters that allow all this to happen. This is why I am so excited that we now have this new list. Hey, it is just for US!
David Scribner has put some pictures of Eleanor under my name on our new list's "members web pages". I invite you to visit and see what Eleanor looks like. I am glad to be a member of the group and let you know that if there is ever ANYTHING that you think I might be able to assist you with, please let me know. I would like to return all the help that so many have given to me.
Craig
Email Craig