(removing tape from reel) More fun than a barrel....

evm1024

evm1024

New member
...of monkys

I picked up a pile of 7" reels of Ampes Data tape (797 i think). I just wanted the reels and not the tape.

The tape is shedding and dirty so I did not want to run it through the deck. I futzed around pulling tape off by hand for a few reels and then hit upon an idea!

So I place the reel on the deck. And then pull off a little tape. You know how it works, you pull the tension arm up by hand and hit play or fast forward and the platter spins. Well that is all fine and good but how to get the tape off?

This is where the fun begins. You take your shop vac and suck the tape into it.
WHole reels fly off the machine, tape and shed get sucked up in a nice and neat package. The kids did a few as well it was so much fun (at first). Got about 20 reels to go.

Just thought I would share this (but I suspect that I am not the first to do this)

Regards
 
Last edited:
evm1024 said:
This is where the fun begins. You take your shop vac and suck the tape into it.
WHole reels fly off the machine, tape and shed get sucked up in a nice and neat package. The kids did a few as well it was so much fun (at first). Got about 20 reels to go.
Click to expand...

Fantastic! I must remember that.. I still have a spool of bad 456 in need of disposal. What I did before was take the flanges off, and just hold the thing in the air. The tape then unwinds itself, but you have one hell of a job getting rid of the massive pile of spaghetti afterwards.
 
I used to "empty" reels using a sharp x-acto blade (had plenty around for tape splicing). I'd just hold it at an angle and saw right down the pack of tape to the hub. Makes thousands of short pieces of tape. Do it over the trash can, or you'll need the shop vac anyway ;)
 
I used to use a razor blade until I cut a big slice in the tip of my thumb. The vacuum sounds more fun.
 
I once took a 10.5” reel of Scotch 226 and attached it to a kite, put a dowel stick in the hub and flew the tape off. It was an absolute pain to collect the tape, even with the help of my two young sons who had a blast with it.

I had already done two other reels at home and was just tired of pulling it off by hand. The tape was old and had sticky shed. The reel flanges were riveted instead of screwed, but these reels are very high quality precision reels, so it was worth the effort.

That vacuum trick is brilliant! If I have to do it again in the future I’ll give it a go.

-Tim :)
 
Photos

Ampex 797 15dw11 is 1/4" 2300' instrumentation tape on a 7" reel. I wanted the reels cause they are Ampex and are in very good condition with boxes. With the Vac it only takes a minute or so to pull 2300' off. Here are some photos. The tape fills a 5 gal vac (Sorry about the bad focus).
 

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