I am on the verge of completing my latest Ampico piano.  I ran all
new power wiring and hung my beautifully reconditioned motor on its
new Bob Streicher rubber mounts.

When I made a new power cord (to go from the electric box under the
piano to a wall outlet) I found that the receptacle that plugs into
the electric box had a hole too big to provide good strain relief for
my power cord.  So I made a strain-relief out of (what else) a short
section of 3/8-inch I.D. player piano hose.

I jammed it in tightly between the two power terminals and screwed the
wire leads down tight.  With everything ready, I plugged in the motor
and power cord, and turned on the drawer switch.  Then I cautiously
plugged the power cord into the wall outlet and the motor started up,
very quietly!  However my delight at how nicely the motor sounded was
cut short as I noticed a cloud of smoke coming out from under the piano
in the motors vicinity!  I quickly pulled the plug as thoughts of what
could be happening to the motor raced through my brain.

After some careful searching, I found that the cause was, thankfully,
not the motor but the piece of player hose that I had used to strain
relieve the receptacle.  Apparently it contains enough conductive
material (carbon?) so that it acted like a resistor between the two
receptacle terminals and self-destructed in the process, leaving lots
of smoke and a very dirty mess.  I guess player piano hose doesn't make
a good insulator after all.

Pat DeWitt