Terry's Rubber Rollers - Had a couple made recently

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I searched through our past threads and didn't see much about Terry here, besides the occasional mention/recommendation, so I wanted to make it official.

I had such a hard time finding a new pinch roller wheel for my 244 and 246 when I first got them. I ended up buying some from a place in Germany and they were okay. They worked (occasionally eating a tape, but not a lot) but I had a pich roller/belt kit get lost in the mail once, and trying to get a replacement ended with a total communication breakdown and me being blocked from doing business with them anymore on eBay. They stopped selling them soon after that. I kept a lookout for any genuine Tascam made ones, but have only seen one come up for sale and the seller was asking almost $90! No, just... no.

I wanted both my machines to be performing the best they could. I don't have much control over the things in my life, but dammit if I can't control my own cassette 4-tracks! I had read about this guy named Terry who supposedly re-built pinch roller wheels a while ago, and had contacted him but for some reason it felt like too much of a gamble. Now I wish I had just gone with him from the very start. I still had the two bad pinch rollers from those aforementioned machines, and I figured I should just send them both to Terry and have a couple spares to cover myself in the future.

For two pinch rollers for a 244/246, the total (including shipping) was $75 and the one I already put in my 246 is flawless. It's been being used for the past 4 days and I haven't had one transport problem. This guy is an artist.

I just wanted to throw the man some respect for his craft, and let people know that this is an awesome resource for these parts which are becoming rarer each year. Making them with such quality must be a very tough thing to do well, as the dimensions of these things has to be precise and balanced or you have what was happening to me before, eaten tapes and ruined takes. It only took him a week and a half too, which is awesome for a project like this. Has anyone else used this guy?

If someone needs a pinch roller for their tape deck, whether it's a 1/2" 8-track or a cassette 4-track, I've experienced and read nothing but good things. And with the companies who originally made these machines, not supplying parts for some time now, this is as good as it gets. Here's the link

Terry's Rubber Pinch Rollers & Wheels

(This is my own opinion, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Homerecording.com :D )
 
I am glad you posted this..... I have a couple I need made and could not remember the guys name or site.... Thanks!!! You saved me some searching.....
 
Terry's Rollers are certainly a great option for the hard to find replacements and when you want something that is the same or close to spec of the original.
I've sent people to that site in the past...but it's been awhile since anyone mentioned the need for pinch rollers around here. :)

That said...and nothing against Terry'r Rollers...if you want/need to take your rollers up a couple of notches to something that will probably never wear out again...
...check out the Athan Corporation products:

Athan Corporation - Pinch Rollers

The rollers are made out of polyurethane, not rubber...so they last about 4 times longer...which for most of our home rec use means it will be the last roller you will ever need. :)

I bought an Athan pinch roller for my Otari MX-80...and I've been wanting to get the counter roller too.
They are certainly not cheap...but they are top-shelf products.
 
Not too pricey. I bought from an ebay vendor an actual new tascam pinch roller cost 80 bucks total. Same as the Athen's price.
Hey, when you need something, as opposed to 'want' you'll pay what you gotta pay.
 
miroslav said:
Terry's Rollers are certainly a great option for the hard to find replacements and when you want something that is the same or close to spec of the original.
I've sent people to that site in the past...but it's been awhile since anyone mentioned the need for pinch rollers around here. :)

That said...and nothing against Terry'r Rollers...if you want/need to take your rollers up a couple of notches to something that will probably never wear out again...
...check out the Athan Corporation products:

Athan Corporation - Pinch Rollers

The rollers are made out of polyurethane, not rubber...so they last about 4 times longer...which for most of our home rec use means it will be the last roller you will ever need. :)

I bought an Athan pinch roller for my Otari MX-80...and I've been wanting to get the counter roller too.
They are certainly not cheap...but they are top-shelf products.
Click to expand...

I've been to the Athan site but they don't do pinch rollers for cassette Portas like what I mentioned, do they? This was over a year ago so maybe they do if you request it, but they're not advertised and couldn't do it for me when I "needed" mine. I did end up getting one of their wheels for my 22-2 and it's great.
 
I recently had Terry do two rollers from my Tascam 48 which were both getting gummy and were probably the originals. They came back perfect and no issues dealing with Terry. In fact, he recommends that customers just download the form from his website and mail it and the roller(s) to him - no need for email contact. I'd use him again in a heartbeat - good to have a resource like him.
 
The Athan rollers are top-notch, but their catalog is limited. Terry Witt should always be considered when needing a roller/idler...he is well-regarded in many circles including those who designed some of these machines we use, AND he does custom one-offs...hard to find something he hasn’t done before, AND indeed he does the cassette rollers for many machines...AND his customer service is A+ 10/10 as far as I’m concerned. Not many people left with his kind of personal follow up habits...ANNNND his rollers meet *or exceed* manufacturer specs...often exceed.

A thumbs up from sweetbeats.
 
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Yeah...Terry's Rollers will pretty much refurb/rebuild most any kind of pinch roller you need....where Athan has a more narrower product line.

Both have their value, depending on your needs.
 
Either/Or.....it's good we have these resources.

Imagine a world without pinch rollers.

Guy #1 "how come you don't use that tape deck, it looks nice,"

Guy #2 "It needs some rubber, and I can't get it."

Guy #1 walks away scratching head

Lol :D
 
RFR said:
Imagine a world without pinch rollers.
Click to expand...

I think that's what they did when they designed the Otari MTR-90. :D

Otari-MTR-90-MK-III_02.png
 
RFR said:
Imagine a world without pinch rollers.
Click to expand...

Other pinchroller-less machines include the Stephens decks and the ATR-102. I keep hoping that one of these firms promising new tape decks will make a pinchroller-free machine, but so far they're all the traditional design.
 
I have sent Terry pinch rollers and counter rollers for the MS-16,MSR-24-scarce as hen's teeth-, and MSR16.All came back in excellent condition.My clients were very happy with both the price and quality.
 
Good to see Terry is still around to save all these classic machines. Always did good work for me.

Alan.
 
Athan poly rollers - personal experience

I've been using Athan poly pinch rollers for roughly 20 years and have both good and bad experiences with them in daily production use, and now less frequent archival digitizing of tape based media.

It's because of that experience with their rollers that I wont use their poly cleaning solution on a roller more than a few years old. On multiple occasions I've cleaned an older Athan poly roller (with their cleaning solution) prior to use only to have it turn to goo (in effect becoming a very tacky particle transfer roller). In most of those instances I resorted to reinstalling the previously used (and still serviceable) rubber roller to complete the task.

The goo experience has occurred on 1" Type C, 1/4" ATR, 3/4" Umatic as well as various flavors of the Betacam format rollers.

I've come to the conclusion that if the Athan roller doesn't have significant oxide/binder buildup I'm better off not using the cleaning solution.

In my experience poly has the advantage in heavy use situations; however, it doesn't last forever, Athan Corp confirmed this when I contacted them about the goo experiences.

I pulled a 15 year old NOS rubber roller from my inventory this week (3-2019) and found it to be just as serviceable as when new.

I got less than 30 hours use (over a 15+ year span) out of the last Athan poly roller I put on an Ampex VPR-80 before it went goo. I'm going to have Terry make a replacement VPR-80 rubber roller for me as soon as I can track down the poly roller I tossed somewhere.

YMMV

Cheers!
 
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