Tape shed anyone?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Richard King
  • Start date Start date
Richard King

Richard King

New member
I've been doing some transfer projects for some folks lately. Most of the transfers are video tape to DVD, but a few have been in need of transferring some old reel to reel tapes. When working on reel to real this is my setup:
125351439.jpg


I have been playing with just about all types of tape. The worst offender seems to be Scotch 207, a fine Minnesota product. Even the back coating was coming off of some of that stuff.
125351444.jpg


The floor after a couple of hours:
125351420.jpg
 
Have you got a food dehydrator to bake those old tapes? If not, now would be a good time to invest in one!

Cheers! :)
 
I'm surprised about Scotch 207, as it's not really known to have sticky shed but it looks I may be wrong. I have some 206 but it just dry sheds. Maybe I'm lucky. :eek: :confused:

Cool setup BTW :)
 
206/207 only sheds on some machines i think and i don't believe it to be traditional "sticky-shed" ... could be due to the combination of the tape getting old and wear on the heads and guides on the machine. i have a 3300 and its much harder on tapes than my other decks, but i do love the sound. i've played some older tapes and the 3300 eats em up but the 22-2 runs pretty smooth. did you try the same tape on the 32?
 
I had the joy of working with some Ampex 291 today. I had to clean the heads and tape path after each song. I had to bypass the supply side tape guide because of the screetching and microphonics it caused with the tape. The interesting thing is that I ran a reel of the same variety a few days ago with no problems at all. I got the project done, but it took forever to transfer 5 songs today. I'm running out of Qtips.
 
lonewhitefly said:
did you try the same tape on the 32?
Click to expand...
My other machine is a 42B, not a 32. Also, the 3300 is a quarter track and the 42 is a half track. I only use the machine that is appropriate for the tape that I am transferring, although I could run a 1/4 track tape on the 42 if it is only recorded in one direction I guess, with significantly increased noise. I agree, that the 3300 is probably very susceptable to the problems because of the tape path (supply side guide seems to be the biggest problem and always has been in the past from my experience). I suspect this is related to fixed tape guides rather than rolling tape guides.
 
oh right, yeh the tape path is a bit rough. but 406 runs pretty smooth on mine. i have the 2-track version of the 3300, so i wasn't thinking fully!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top