A Real Sticking Point

Ok, so it was a bad joke, I'm an organbuilder-it is part of the job description.......

The picture at left shows the relationship of the keys to the stickers. You press a key, the sticker moves up, presses one end of the rocker arm up and the other moves down, and pulls the pallet down admitting wind to the pipe.

The picture at right shows a bit more of the stickers themselves. They are nothing but wooden dowels with tiny rods drilled into them. We add a red felt washer for noise control and a little bit of wear reduction.

In both pictures the rollerboard is evident. For reasons of space and centering, it is desirable to split the bottom octave of pipes into two sections. Unfortunately, most musicians insist on having sequential note orders, so some way has to be found to move the motion to the opposite side....enter the rollerboard. Here, every other key connects to one end of the rollerboard, just visible at the opposite end is the connection to the proper rocker arm. It is the same process with a horizontal shift. (aye, organists are shifty folk.......)

(No, I have not yet cleaned the keys themselves, that is much later......)

Some more definitions:

Rollerboard: A device that uses rollers to move the physical force from the trackers in a horizontal orienation.

Rocker Arm: A device to move the physical force from the keys along a horizontal plane.

Sticker: A vertical tracker. Usually used when the distance travelled is less than 6 inches.