About us
Our Workshop
Our organ building company was founded in 1820 by Gottlieb Heise in Potsdam, where it had its headquarters for over 180 years. Our workshops were located in two backyards in the Dutch quarter of Potsdam’s inner city. These workshops were no longer capable for efficient work according to modern standards, so that Matthias Schuke decided to build a new workshop building in nearby Werder (Havel).
Since 2004, our organ builders have been working in our new workshop building, which was designed especially for the needs of a modern organ building workshop. In addition to our own casting and metal pipe workshop, our building has a well-equipped machine park, a spacious wood workshop with an attached restoration workshop and a ten-meter-high assembly hall for pre-assembling the instruments.
The heart of an organ building company is the workshop
Our modern tin pipe workshop
As one of the few organ building companies in Germany, we continue to operate our own foundry and metal pipe workshop. In our foundry we can heat various alloys and produce plate material for the organ pipes. A special feature is our reconstructed historical alloy “English Tin”. It consists of 96 percent tin and other important elements which are of great importance for the stability of the pipes.
Furthermore, we had our planing machine modernized in cooperation with the University of Potsdam and equipped it with a computer control system. This enables not only to periodically linearthinning out the thickness of a cast organ metal plate, but also profiling it. This makes it possible to reduce the thickness of the pipe wall towards the top, which saves material and weight. We can use this procedure in our workshop down to the deep 16′ position.
Due to our special alloy and the possibility of thinning the pipe wall upwards, our pipes are particularly stable. A deformation is impossible even after decades. Since we have 25 years of experience with this special manufacturing method of our facade pipes, we offer our customers a 25 year warranty on the stability of our facade pipes.
25 year warranty on the stability of our facade pipes
Our restoration workshop
During the restoration of an organ, the listed substance is carefully refurbished and returned to its original condition. Our focus is on preserving the maximum amount of historical substance for posterity. Missing parts are reconstructed in the choice of materials and the construction methods of the old masters.
We apply these old building methods in our specially equipped restoration workshop. Special tools and materials used hundreds of years ago are used.
In combination with our specialized pipe workshop it is possible for us to re-alloy various historical metals and thus meet the highest demands in the restoration and reconstruction of instruments.
Our wood workshop with assembly hall
The windchests, bellows, wooden pipes, the sound and register mechanics as well as the cases of the organs are built in our generous wooden workshop with attached machinery.
Next to the wood workshop is our assembly hall with a length, width and height of ten meters each. This gives us the opportunity to build large organs in the workshop. All parts of the organ can be pre-assembled and adapted so that the assembly time on site in the church or concert hall is reduced.
