The Headline read, "Player piano burns but house is spared".

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of
view, that headline appeared in my local paper in 1990 and
it was MY house they were talking about.

I had been working all day on a player that had already
been inspected by the customer and was scheduled for
delivery and I had gone out that evening with a friend. For
legal reasons, I called the arson squad when I returned
home (11:00 PM) to find the freshly refinished, completely
restored and fully automated 1917 Lauter/Humana completely
scorched on the outside. (For those truly interested in
all the sorted details, I will draft a letter and send
it to you upon e-mail request.)

At about 1:00 AM, it was determined that the push-button
switch I had installed earlier that day (the switch was
mounted in the left wall/upper half of the spool box)
was faulty and when it arced it set the cotton/polyester
sheet (I was using to keep the dust off) on fire. As it
spread quickly down the sheet , it caused a "flash fire"
on the freshly finished parts (17 coats hand-rubbed lacquer)
and the hardwood floor. The fire destroyed the veneer. It's
repair/replacement is another story.

Having been an electronics technical responsible for
calibration and repair of electronic testing equipment
for a number of years in my earlier days, I was not
convinced that the switch was to blame. So I did a little
testing on my own. However, I did not test switches.

At this point I must back-track for just a moment.
When I installed the switch, I determined that the
external power connections (tabs, connectors) were
uncomfortably close and exposed. And even though they
posed no real danger to the operator (since they were
outside of the spool box) I elected to "insulate" the
connections with a small piece of black neoprene
tracker bar tubing thus eliminating the possibility
of accidental shock. After soldering the connections,
I slipped the tubing over the joint. Nice, neat and
clean. Because of the close proximity of the connections,
the two pieces of tubing slightly touched each other.
I thought, "boy, it's a good thing you decided to
separate those connections, it would be easy to short
them out."

Well, for those of you who know the ingredients of
neoprene tubing, the resultant fire is no mystery but
to those of you that don't know, black neoprene tubing
uses carbon black as one of its ingredients. Carbon is
an extremely good conductor of electricity and when put
between 115 volts AC and ground ("0" volts AC) it becomes
a resistor (an electronic device which allows but limits
the flow of electrons and gives off heat). If the
amount of resistance is too small (as compared to the
difference voltage), the current (the number of
electrons/second that flow) flowing through the
"resistor" will cause it to burn up.

In this instance, the resultant "burning-up"
(or carbonizing) of the neoprene tubing was significant
enough to set the sheet on fire. The rest is history.

I hope this true story will educate at least two people.
Then two people will tell two people and they'll tell
two people, etc., etc., etc. My attitude is that the
loss I suffered is meaningless unless it can be utilized
to educate someone else and ultimately prevent a similar
mishap.

Am I embarrassed by this incident?? No. I learned a
valuable lesson and the insurance company paid for the
refinishing, re-veneering and the other 1917 Lauter/Humana
that I located and purchased for parts. (The Serial Numbers
were less than 100 apart and the models were identical, but
the cases were slightly different owing to the fact that
they were all "hand made".
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John A Tuttle "Self-Playing Pianos"    E-mail:tuttleja@concentric.net
407 19th Avenue                             908-840-8787 (leave message)
Bricktown, NJ 08724               Rolls:1-800-870-8784 (leave order)
"We Keep Your Music Rolling"  http://www.concentric.net/~tuttleja/
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