Slight oxide shed...what's normal?

mamm7215

mamm7215

Member
So I've been resurrecting my TSR-8 love here in my studio. Always played a little with it but not like when I first got it a couple of years ago and it's sat idle mostly due to my "real" job being very busy the last year and a half. When I bought it it came with about 6 reels of quantegy 456 and 499 tapes (2 499's I think). I've read all about the sticky shed here and cleaned up the deck immaculately when I first got it, though it was in pretty good shape. Still had to clean up some oxide. I ended up tossing a couple of tapes because they just dropped oxide left and right and were hard to rewind/ff. The remaining tapes seemed good and didn't shed. I was archiving yesterday and testing the tapes just to see what was on which tape and noticed that one of the tapes is slower and grabby to rewind/ff than the others. It also drops a fair amount of oxide specs when in transport or ff/rew. So that one I'm likely going to chuck. The others all spool well and a couple don't even drop any oxide when playing or ff/rew so that's good. I have a couple that after playing or ff/rew there's just a "trace" of the odd miniscule specks or few of oxide after use (I use a plain white piece of paper under the transport section to see what drops off).

So my question is: is this a normal amount of in-use shed? The ff/rew speeds are fast and don't slow down or appear to bind or stick and transport is quiet.

nb: just checked the date stickers on the reels themselves, I have 3 reels of 499 dated 1997, 2000, 2000 and 3 of 456 dated 1998, 2003, 2003. I believe these dates are after the "sticky shed era" although I guess it's possible for reels to be bad anytime.

Thanks.
 
499 is not susceptible to SSS, so any date on those is OK. I only use 499 and have never had a problem with it regardless of date. And I get no oxide on the machine during a service cycle, which I try to keep at 50 hours. All of your 456 dates should be clear of the SSS period...BUT are you sure the tape in the box is the tape that was in the box originally?
 
Nope, not at all. The one reel of 499 was not recorded on that I could tell so fairly sure that it's clean, and evidence supports that. The rest, no way of knowing...
 
that is a big problem. Well if they are shedding at all, look up the baking trick and get your material off of them, then spool them into the rubbish and keep the reels.
 
mdainsd said:
that is a big problem. Well if they are shedding at all, look up the baking trick and get your material off of them, then spool them into the rubbish and keep the reels.
Click to expand...

Again, my understanding is that some very light occasional dusting or specking (almost not discernable except with aforementioned white paper under transport?) is "normal. Or is it not and there shouldn't be anything coming off the tape at all? Sorry to sound repetitive...
 
I wouldn't sweat the small amount of "dust" or occasional specs.

I run 499 and it will do that with a lot of back-n-forth...but there's no *drop-outs* and/or sticky oxide anywhere. When I clean the heads at the end of the day, there's rarely even a brown smudge on the cotton.

It's probably the very edges as they grind alonig the guides...but it will take a long time for any issues to surface from that.
 
Right, the edges makes sense as some of the reels have a slight wobble and the tape does occaisionally rub, but as I've noticed, but only on a couple of them. Thanks.
 
There is usually a build up of light dust after a long session, that is why it's good to get in the habit of cleaning the heads and guides at the start and end of each session, and sometimes during a long session.

alan.
 
Yep, some oxide shed is normal. 456 from the good years normally runs cleaner than 499, but expect a little oxide from any type of tape. However, tape rubbing on a reel will increase shedding and edge damage, so best to try to adjust that where it doesn't rub.

All the years you mentioned are good. They will never have sticky-shed. Now here's something important to always keep in mind. When you acquire tapes that are already opened, you have no way to know if the tape on the reel is the same as it says on the box. Thus we can't consider these tapes when compiling information on the years effected by sticky-shed. Some sellers innocently get tapes mixed up so tapes wind up in a different box than what they came in. Some sellers sell old tape in newer boxes knowing full well they are selling bad tape. Unfortunately these sort are out there. If your tape is slowing down the transport it may have sticky-shed, but again we can't use this info to show that tape from these later years has sticky-shed. We know that 456 made from 1995 and later does not have sticky-shed, but... we can only be certain of tape new and sealed in box.
 
Fair enough, I'm playing odds here though obviously nothing's a given. The one tape I did toss was only because it did seem to bind even after a couple of back and forth rew/ff's and when in transport, dropped a fair amount of oxide, some even in small chunks so out it went. All the other tapes appear to be in very good shape so I'm "choosing" to lean towards believing the dates on the reels. As always, I'll be keeping a keen eye on the heads and guides and I always have my white piece of paper under the head section to see if there's excess shedding.
Thanks for all the replies and advice.
 
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