Cleaners

[sjjohnston]

Well we're all entitled to our opinions and until someone like yourself can explain to me why it's beneficial to demagnitize a magnet, I'm keeping mine.

At the risk of repeating what was said before -- it's beneficial to demagnetize a magnet if you don't want it to be a magnet. You don't want your tape heads to be magnets, for fairly obvious reasons. The whole purpose of the tape head is to produce a magnetic field in response to the electricity that's run through it. If it's a magnet to start with (i.e. it produces a magnetic field when no electricity is running through it), the magnetic field it produces won't correspond to the electricity that's run through it ... it won't record what it's supposed to.

 

[justinchannell]

Can someone send me a diagram, so I know what to clean with alcohol and what to clean with Windex?

 

[Wil Davis]

Can someone send me a diagram, so I know what to clean with alcohol and what to clean with Windex?

I think there may some pics in some of the other URLs mentioned in other posts.

Bearing in mind we're talking ONLY about the tape-path here - the basic rule is:

rubber (or non-metal) - use Windex

metal ( tape-guides, tape-heads c-a-r-e-f-u-l now! ) - use isopropyl-alcohol.

Once again, I'm only talking about cleaning the tape-path.

- Wil

 

[battleminnow]

So, what's the best bang for your buck magnet, say, under $100?

 

[NYMorningstar]

I just can't stand to see mis-information swilling around here like it was something special...)

Well what about what you've been swilling?
e.g.

When you clean the pinch-roller Do NOT USE ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL - use something which will not disolve the pinch-roller - I use Windex.

Alcohol is the most common solvent, and the most universally safe on tape recorder or duplicator parts. It certainly doesn't desolve the pinchroller. Maybe you're thinking of acid, or taking it?

Some tape head cleaners are made with other solvents such as Xylene. The problem with other solvents is that they can damage some heads, and often damage rubber parts such as pinch rollers. While alcohol will dry out rubber with extended use, no other solvent is usually safe for regular use on rubber. If a pinch roller starts to get a hard surface after 6 months or so of daily cleaning with alcohol, you can soften the surface with typewriter platen cleaner. Do not use this more than once or twice a year since it can make the rubber tacky.

Bearing in mind we're talking ONLY about the tape-path here - the basic rule is:
rubber (or non-metal) - use Windex .

Who's writing these rules?. Water is a poor solvent for this purpose and windex is almost 100% water. And the other ingredients, well you won't believe this, butoxyethanol, ether and
isopropol alcohol. So what's up with that?


justinchannell, don't use windex, use alcohol, the purer the better. You can probably go to the website of the manufacturer of the equipment you have to get a pic of the tape path and instructions on how to clean it.

eyeslikefire, debate we shall and that's cool with me
sweet dreams

 

[sjjohnston]

On the question of what to clean with what, I'm basically in agreement with the other posts above: use head cleaner (or really pure alcohol) on all the metal parts that the tape slides over. The most important is the tape heads: record, play (if you have a separate play head) and erase. It pays to keep the various guides that tape runs over, and the capstan, clean too.

For rubber and plastic parts -- most importantly the pinch roller -- I personally use Tascam's rubber cleaner. I've heard the Windex recommendation from various sources, and it's probably a good one, so far as I can tell. I generally don't clean the pinch roller nearly as often as the heads and metal parts, though. On the reel-to-reel decks that I have, the pinch roller makes contact with the back of the tape, and the capstan's on the oxide side. With cassette decks (and some reel decks) it's the other way around, which I suppose is a factor. But I worry a bit that "overcleaning" the rubber may do some harm.

A Tascam rep did once claim that only Tascan rubber cleaner should be used on rubber, and that even distilled water could harm the pinch roller. Personally, I'd take that with a grain of salt, though (no -- I don't mean a grain of salt in the distilled water!).

Alcohol is the most common solvent,

I'm pretty sure water is the most common solvent. It's sometimes referred to as "the universal solvent," although that may be overstating things slightly.

and the most universally safe on tape recorder or duplicator parts. It certainly doesn't desolve the pinchroller. Maybe you're thinking of acid, or taking it? ...

Alcohol's great on metal parts, so far as I know. However, quite a few people do report problems with pinch rollers that turn into something like gummy bears (or worse). I don't know that it's alcohol that does this, but I'd be pretty careful one way or the other. Actually, the rap on alcohol -- or head cleaning fluid -- and rubber is that it makes the rubber hard and slick, which I suppose is the opposite problem.

 

[sjjohnston]

So, what's the best bang for your buck magnet, say, under $100?

If you really mean "magnet," I don't know. For $100 you can probably get a pretty big magnet, though.

If you mean a demagnetizer, I'd go with the Annis Han-D-Mag.

 

[Freudian Slip]

remember thrust? That crap you could sniff to give your self a hart attack. The use to sell it in head shops wight next to the whipits. Well now they are selling that crap under the title head cleaner. It is suppose to be for cleaning vidio camera heads

That's that I would use

Not really... I have always used rubbing alcohol. And when I'm in a pinch Skyy vodka

Later

F.S.

 

[eyeslikefire]

So, what's the best bang for your buck magnet, say, under $100?

LMAO!!!