Hello everyone.  A critical moment in the rebuilding of my upright
Steck Duo-Art occurred this morning.  My mate, Jim, called round and
together we put the rebuilt steamboat pump and its electric motor
back into the bottom of my Steck.  There was a slight delay when Jim
pointed out that I had got the two mounting brackets at the top of the
pumps trunk screwed on back-to-front.  To my relief the pump certainly
is producing vacuum; I haven't yet measured how much.

However, my query is about the mounting of the electric motor.  The
original motor doubtless would have been made for 110 VAC and 60 Hz.
Australia uses 240 VAC at 50 Hz, and so a replacement motor was needed.

This motor, a quarter-horsepower model of British manufacture, is
bolted to a block of wood roughly 9.5" x 6.5" x 0.75" thick.  At the
back of this block -- i.e. on the side closest to the piano's
soundboard -- a  leather strap has been mounted.  The two ends of the
strap protrude out beyond the edges of the block by about 2" at either
end.  Both loose ends have been pierced twice, producing holes of about
3/16" diameter.

Hard up against the beam that forms part of the framework of the piano
case, at the bottom, is a wooden structure that looks like an inverted
bridge.  Protruding from what would have been the pillars of the
bridge, had it been the other way up, are metal pins, two at each end.
The pierced leather straps can be pushed onto these pins, and then the
back side of the motor is essentially floating on the leather strap.
Little vibration reaches the soundboard.

That's all pretty clear; at least it is to me.  However my query is:
how should the motor be suspended at the front?  Whatever was done on
this piano is a mystery, because when I took delivery of it, nothing
remained of the front suspension except a turnbuckle screwed to the
under side of the keybed.  It seems obvious that the turnbuckle allows
the motor to be raised and lowered a little, and enables the tension in
the drive belts to be adjusted.

But how were the two corners of the motor block attached to the
turnbuckle?  I have tried running a length of the tightly coiled,
plastic coated wire, normally used to suspend curtains, through two
hook eyes screwed to the corners of the  wooden block, with the free
ends meeting up at the turnbuckle.  (If that sentence hasn't confused
you, I haven't been trying hard enough!)

Jim thinks that the curtain wire should be replaced by two solid
rods; I'm dubious.

If anyone has a functioning steamboat pump, I'd be very grateful of
a description of how the electric motor is suspended at the front.
And a digital photo would be marvellous.

John Phillips - in Hobart, Tasmania