Brand new reel of SM911... sticky shed?!

J

janahdfrazier

New member
I recently purchased a 1"x2500' reel of SM911 (Recording the Masters brand) from Full Compass last week. I've had really great luck with Pyral and RMGI, but I don't see tape available from those folks anymore. I put the reel on my machine and it started squeaking instantly. After just a few seconds of playing, there was oxide buildup all over the tape path. Not the typical "sticky" shed you'd expect from older tapes, but oxide dust everywhere. The heads were covered and there were HF dropouts almost immediately. I tried the reel on a different 1" machine and had the same result!

Has anyone else ever experienced this before? I am definitely not inclined to buy tape from this manufacturer again, but the pickings these days are growing exceedingly slim..
 
I'm leaning towards it being a bad batch of tape. I've never seen a tape dry shed like this. There was quite a bit of dust, but also a lot of very fine, wispy hair-like fibers that accumulated on the heads and tape path. Not the normal bit of residue you'd find after playing a new tape.

I did a fast wind 4 times, and it seems like it cleared up. Now it's depositing the normal bit of tape dust you'd expect to see from a brand new reel of tape... I am hesitant to use it now, though, and the stuff ain't cheap.
 
To be fair I haven't run 1" for a long time. However I am regularly using SM900 on 2" and 1/4", plus SM911 on 1/2". The only issues I've had were with the cheap plastic-spooled SM900 I bought as a cost-saving measure, where the plastic spool shattered and it made little tinkling noises as the reel rotated and the fragments churned around inside it.
 
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