School me on baking tape?

RFR

Well-known member
So, I found at my local Goodwill a round 13 inch diameter food dehydrator. Sounds good, should fit 10 inch reels. And it was a steal. 8 bucks! :)

Now I get it home, and I'm going huh???

I thought it would be a solid wall contraption with stacking shelves inside. Much like a bigger round crockpot.

Nope. :D

The stacking shelves ARE the walls. And then you got a lid to put on top of all of it. The height in these stackable shelves isn't enough to put a half inch reel of tape. In.

What the hell do I do now? Is this a normal dehydrator design. ??

I'm thinking maybe cutting out the centers of a few of those stackable shelves so I can fit some tape inside. But it seems that with no exterior walls, and just plastic stacked, you'd lose quite a bit of heat.

What say ye with experience?
:D

Oh, and ps. Got no idea how to bake tape either, never having done it before. :D

Edit : hah! 5 minutes on youtube showed me I was a dumbass. :D
The stacking is normal and you want it to be able to breathe. Duh. How's the moisture in the tape escape if it cant breathe :D

So two questions answered.

Which brings up something else. There's no temperature control just an on off switch.
But thankfully it works. Generates heat and has a functional fan. :thumbs up:
 
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I thought you and I covered this subject awhile back. :D

I have no idea which dehydrator you have or what it looks like...but the one that works best for audio tapes is the:
Snackmaster Pro model FD-50 made by American Harvest (800-288-4545)

I'm not even sure if they still make this model...or if they have "improved" it, meaning it's something totally different now, and the audio reels won't fit...but you can find pictures of the Snackmaster Pro, and get some visual of why it works.

Anyway...that's the one I have and use for tape baking. Plus I bought a few extra trays, and that lets me do more tapes and more tape/reel sizes at once.
For thicker tape/reels...you have to use two trays, and you simply cut out the grating in one of them...just leave some around the actual sidewall, to keep it stiffer...and only cut out as much as needed.

You set it to 135 degrees, and depending on tape/reel size and how bad the tape is...you bake anywhere from 4-6 hours up to 8-12 hours, flipping the reels and also rotating their position in the stack if you are doing more than one...every 1-2 hours, for better baking consistency.
Then take out the reel(s) and put them in their box and let them cool for at least as many hours as you baked them before you attempt to spool them up on your deck.
Oh...watch it, the metal gets hot at 135 degrees, but unless you have girly hands, you can handle the reels long enough to flip them, holding at the flanges edges without burning yourself. Otherwise, you might want to wear some work gloves if you need to handle them longer.

This is the one:
American Harvest Snackmaster Food Dehydrator 2400 FD-50 in Box w/ Instructions 29517650508 | eBay

Oh...use that other dehydrator to make some beef jerky... :p
 
Thanks [MENTION=94267]miroslav[/MENTION]. Maybe we covered it before, but hell if I remember. Lol :)
But thanks for the tutorial, and no, I ain't got girly hands. :D

I got 5 layers. Gonna cut out the grating on one layer and give it a shot.
My only concern at this time is if it gets enough temp to bake tape in less than a week. ;)
Actually, I do remember you recommending a snack master.
But for a whopping eight bucks, can you blame me for picking this up? Got some local grass fed Tri Tip jerky planned
:D
 
Mr Coffee 5 tray dehydrator.

Didn't know Mr Coffee made them.
I love my Mr Coffe 2-cup coffee maker....the original one.
I think I have 2-3 spare original ones, since they changed them at some point, and I don't like the new design...so I stocked up. :)
 
Didn't know Mr Coffee made them.
I love my Mr Coffe 2-cup coffee maker....the original one.
I think I have 2-3 spare original ones, since they changed them at some point, and I don't like the new design...so I stocked up. :)

I got a Mr Tea. Looks just like the Mr Coffee, but is very simple, no hot plate, no basket. You just set your cup on the plate, insert a teabag, then lift up the lid where the coffee basket would be, and pour some boiling water through the hole into your teacup.
Utter simplicity, and it makes a perfect cup everytime. :D :D :D


Edit: I think I saw that back in the day on SNL.....back when the show was still funny.
;)
 
...back in the day on SNL.....back when the show was still funny.
;)

Oh...now you're talking WAY back in the day! :D

Sometime in the late '70s when I was renting a 3-story apartment house with a couple of guys (one of them was seeing my sister at the time, that's how I got the bottom floor, more like basement, when it became available).
Anyway...we had a regular Saturday night ritual to gather and watch SNL...even if any of us was planning to go out afterwards, or of my girlfriend came over, SNL came first, then we went about our other plans for the evening...but that's when SNL use to really be funny, and not so politically obsessed as it is these days. Back then they made fun of everyone, not just one political party.

OK...wasn't looking to segue into any political commentary...but yeah, those were fun days.
 
Yeah true, true, true.
Imagine anyone on a major corporate network being able to say "Jane, you ignorant slut" in today's climate. They would organize, rally and clamor for your removal and not stop till your career was ruined, and maybe even jailed. Back then it was just funny. And if it offended anyone.......well they just didn't watch.

Lot of great talent came from that time and became household names.
When SNL lost it's comedic edge, we got Second City TV . Lot of talent came from there too. I believe that was John Candy's jumping off show.

:D
 
Just to add to this thread, I also have a food dehydrator to bake tapes which works well. However, I had 3 unopened 1/2" Ampex 456 tapes on 14" reels from about 1991. Now I don't have a machine that can play 14" tapes and so couldn't even transfer them onto 10" reels because of SSS and they wouldn't fit in the food dehydrator that I had.

Anyway, as I said they were sealed tapes and they would be worth about $600AUD if I was to buy today's equivalent of these tapes, so I was pretty keen on using them for recording. Against the suggestions of the internet, I baked them in my kitchen oven at about 50 - 60 degrees Celsius for 6 hours. Then I spooled them onto six 10" reels without a trace of tape residue on the transport. That was around 2 months ago and have been using them for recording as recently as last week without issues.

The general consensus is not to use this method for baking tapes but in my case these tapes had no important recordings on them so there was nothing really to lose and now that they are on 10" reels, if I need to bake them again in the future (if I ever want to remix the songs for example) I can do it properly with the food dehydrator.

Just mentioned this to say that using an oven to bake the tapes worked for me and although I wouldn't recommend it (based on the general consensus), if you are desperate it may work for you as well.
 
Unopened sticky tapes can be dissapointing. I had three reels of 'new' unopened and sealed 456. Chucked it all in the trash and just saved the reels. Oh well.......what's the saying? If I only knew then what I know now.

Glad it worked out for you. :)
 
Just mentioned this to say that using an oven to bake the tapes worked for me and although I wouldn't recommend it (based on the general consensus), if you are desperate it may work for you as well.

The only real concern with using a regular oven, is that many will not provide equal/consistent heat throughout...like the ones that have the burners/coils at the bottom, and it's basically centered, so the middle of the oven might get hotter...just like the back of the oven often does, more than the front...etc.
If you had a decent oven that cooked fairly even, and you rotated the reels more often during the process...you could get away it and make it work, as it did for you. If you have a convection oven with the internal fans...they are much better, and will do a nice even bake...but the dehydrators are the best-case.
The way the hot air rapidly circulates the entire time, in the small space of the dehydrator...it's guaranteed to be a nice even bake.

Unopened sticky tapes can be dissapointing. I had three reels of 'new' unopened and sealed 456. Chucked it all in the trash and just saved the reels. Oh well.......what's the saying? If I only knew then what I know now.


Well...most people will tell you that baking is not intended for making the tapes useable for new recording. It's mainly a restoration effort to give you a temporary opportunity to transfer what's on there...or like, if it's an expensive MRL tape, so that you can use it for the moment.
The general consensus is that SSS tapes are going to only be temporarily "fixed" with baking...so people usually toss them after transferring the audio that's on them. Now you can supposedly bake and re-bake many times to get the binders to "set" again, but I don't know if it's worth it or if it's safe to do that for new material you're recording. If anything...track to them and immediately dump off to a DAW or another tape.
That said...I have some that I baked that were not the classic SSS mess that very specific brands/vintages of tapes had. Instead these were good tapes that were not stored very well by someone, and they just became a bit tacky. Since baking them a couple of years ago...they haven't turned bad from what I could see.
Some of the infamous 456 tapes...I had a few 1/4" reels from the late '80's-early '90s...and man they were just total gunk and goo. You couldn't spin them for more than 30 seconds without them screeching to a halt due to the heavy crud buildup on the guides. I tossed mine out too.
 
The general consensus is that SSS tapes are going to only be temporarily "fixed" with baking...so people usually toss them after transferring the audio that's on them. Now you can supposedly bake and re-bake many times to get the binders to "set" again, but I don't know if it's worth it or if it's safe to do that for new material you're recording. If anything...track to them and immediately dump off to a DAW or another tape.

Agree 100% Miro. I was fully aware of the risks with using SSS tapes for recording new material and definitely won't be putting those tapes back into the oven with the now recorded material on them if I need to re-bake in the future.

Yes, my oven was a fairly new Bosch fan forced oven. I just stacked the three 14" reels in the oven and took them out 6 hours later and it seemed to work fine.
 
I find it interesting that what was the industry standard, Ampex 456, is now the redheaded stepchild of the tape world. Or the rabid dog that needs to be put down. :D

I've got some 40 year old Scotch that's still good . The only issues I've ever had was 'flakey shed' on the ends of some reels. I think that has something to do with improper handling though. No problem for me. I leave penty of blank area before printing.
 
I missed this whole "baking tape thing" but I DO have a 1979 Mr. Coffee NON-ELECTRIC! Basically a plastic tub over a plastic pot. Paper filter and grounds go in, a disc seals then down and you pour the coffee in the tub! Same awful white plastic with the flower design. Makes great coffee.
 
I wouldn't waste time trying to make something sticky work again. I'd just buy newer tape stock. You won't get more then s few passes out of a baked tape and once your cooking your tape stock it's time to transfer your work and move on. Baking isn't even a guarantee of regluing anything. I get it's application for presentation but it's an extremely crude thing to do to a recording and reminds me of guys who try "reballing/reflowing" solder on GPUs for computers by doing the exact same thing. Go ahead if you must but I wouldn't plan on using an oven as apart of your analog setup as it defeats the purpose of the medium and makes the equipment and medium look totally unsustainable to clients. Truth is. All NOS tape is falling apart as we speak. Record as much as you can before it's all sticky junk. Cassettes are next on the deathlist but thankfully I h
aven't experienced any issue with 90s-2000s sealed cassettes YET. this is my sentiment and my techs sentiment whose been doing this 30+ years and worked at Neil Young's studio in the 90s. Once it's gone sticky. Try to save the data on tape but kiss it goodbye after that.
 
Truth is. All NOS tape is falling apart as we speak. Record as much as you can before it's all sticky junk. Cassettes are next on the deathlist

Sorry but this is just not true. I assume you meant to say all back coated tape as obviously non-backcoated tape would not be susceptible to any SSS issues.

It is only the tape manufactured with a particular glue that would absorb moisture and become unstable over time that is at risk.

BASF, Quantegy and a number of other tape brands will not have these issues if stored as per the manufacturer's recommendations.

Magnetic tape is still is one of the most stable and reliable long term storage mediums available today.
 
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