Regarding the fire which John Tuttle experienced in a Lauter:

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

   The incident caused by conductive neoprene tubing being used as
"insulation" has probably been repeated a number of times, but I had
another very close call of a different nature.

   I was in a customer's home in another city, making repairs to a
Duo-Art. I put on a roll and switched it on, and it began playing, but
I heard a kind of "splutt" sound when the start winding of the motor
kicked out. So while the piece was playing I casually drug my bones
back under the piano and looked up in time to see flames licking the
soundboard and flattening themselves all over the board in a one-foot
area above the motor, growing hotter by the second. That was scary. I
took the motor to a rewinder who rewound it and repaired the start
switch.

   The point is this: The start winding probably had a shorted turn, or
partially shorted turn which generated too much heat and caused a high
power spark from the start switch, just as soon as that switch opened.
A combination of oily dirt ignited, and the high heat already in the
motor super-heated the tars, which then turned it into a torch as the
inductance demanded increasing current (I sq. X R) to counter the
increasing resistance. The fire was totally silent and would not be
heard by anyone until it was just too late.

   If your grand reproducer motor runs hot to the degree that you can
smell it after it has been running for 30 minutes to an hour, I suggest
you drop it and take it to a small motor shop for a checkover before
something like this happens to you, too. There is also a solid state
replacement for the start switch, in case it has distorted or burned up
over the years. And a shorted start winding will finish the start
switch for you in short order.

Craig B.