Dear Robbie,

In response to Phil Dayson's request, the next to the last time I
visited Schaff Piano Supply in Lake Zurich, Illinois, I saw a small
hoard of new Lee Suction units on the shelves.  President Dave Johnson
indicated that his firm had purchased all of the remaining stock of
these small vacuum units.  Maybe they still have some units for sale.

I'm fairly certain that Matthew Caulfield could learn Johnny Verbeeck's
source of that curious yellow packing material by simply writing or
calling Johnny in St.  Job in't Goor, Belgium -- his factory.  He has
a listing in the latest MBSI Directory.

I have a small sample of this very same material from Johnny's last
rebuild here.  It works very well!

To return to the Lee Suction unit issue, W. W. Grainger, Inc. sells a
few small bypass blower motors which lend themselves well to providing
either suction or pressure, or both at the same time.  With the use of
a suitable triac, one can turn down the rpm's and the noise and still
get very respectable outputs.  A few years ago, I built a small chest
for Ragtime's plastic calliope pipes.  The Grainger blower put out a
large amount of volume at very low speeds, and the price was very low,
too.  I did have to build the enclosure out of 1/2" plywood, but it
didn't take very long.

Finally, I purchased a small number of used Xerox/Ametek Windjammer
blowers from Peterson Electro-Musical Products in Worth, Illinois very
reasonably.  These are not small units, and they're not noiseless
either!  However, they are very economical compared to authentic pipe
organ blowers which easily cost $1,000 and up for even small units.
These older Ametek Windjammer blowers have been used for more than a
few years at a well-known tourist attraction outside Madison,
Wisconsin, where six of them provide wind for the "guts" of a former
Mortier Cafe Organ, set on coin-operation.  For those with higher
aspirations, Cincinnati Fan Company manufacturers very nice blowers
suitable for small pipe organ installations.

A recent issue of "Product Design and Development" featured a display
ad for Ametek's ultra-compact Windjammer units, but I have no firsthand
experience with these newest blowers.

Regards,
Bob Baker