If You Buy This You Are a Dumbass

[Beck]

Regebro's a dumass, so what'd'ya expect.

I think it was this line that got me:


Like how I mastered the "quote" function?? Heh.

No dumbass could master the quote function like that. But as far as that quote -- I was just being a dumass.

 

[cjacek]

...it's getting a bit uncomfortable right about now ...... "Calm before the storm" comes to mind .. I think I'll just hide for cover

~Daniel

 

[A Reel Person]

I also like...

how you post some bait so that I'll reply, and then delete the baiting post.

Kinda makes my post hang out there as a nonsequiter. Eh?

How adept you are at i'net trollbaiting. You're the master baiter!

 

[Beck]

how you post some bait so that I'll reply, and then delete the baiting post.

Kinda makes my post hang out there as a nonsequiter. Eh?

How adept you are at i'net trollbaiting. You're the master baiter!

No, honestly I think it's getting late. I thought I would consolidate my posts because they were a little scattered, but it didn't work because we were posting so frequently. Dumbass me, eh? I used to work nights 7:00 pm - 7:00 am for a while, then just 11:00 to 7:00 before I went to second shift.

 

[A Reel Person]

Yeah,...

I'm on 11pm-7am right now, then I alternate to 12am-8am every other month.
For me, at this time, it just doesn't get any better than that.

 

[Beck]

...it's getting a bit uncomfortable right about now ...... "Calm before the storm" comes to mind .. I think I'll just hide for cover

~Daniel

I think this might be the calm after the storm -- all clear.

 

[Beck]

I'm on 11pm-7am right now, then I alternate to 12am-8am every other month.
For me, at this time, it just doesn't get any better than that.

I liked working nights -- it's a different world. I guess it depends on what you're doing.

 

[A Reel Person]

It's a different world, alright!!

..................

 

[nettech]

Put me in for 3 reels of Ampex 457 "Double Stick Tape"!

Ok, I am a dumb-ass. But only 3 reels worth so far.

What made me think that buying Ampex-branded 457 tape would not lead me into the sticky-shed? I have no clue, other than not using analog tape decks since 1985.

Eight minutes of running time on one reel, and the whole deck slowly froze-up.

After 3 hours of scouring oxide off and demagnetizing everything in the entire tape path, I find that Channel 8 has got extreme dropouts (randomly lasting anywhere from 2 seconds to a minute) when switching back to Quantegy 407.

Has anyone experienced something similar? I'm assuming that the stick-shed tape has somehow destroyed the tape heads core.

Man, EBay can really suck some time.

 

[Beck]

Ok, I am a dumb-ass. But only 3 reels worth so far.

What made me think that buying Ampex-branded 457 tape would not lead me into the sticky-shed? I have no clue, other than not using analog tape decks since 1985.

Eight minutes of running time on one reel, and the whole deck slowly froze-up.

After 3 hours of scouring oxide off and demagnetizing everything in the entire tape path, I find that Channel 8 has got extreme dropouts (randomly lasting anywhere from 2 seconds to a minute) when switching back to Quantegy 407.

Has anyone experienced something similar? I'm assuming that the stick-shed tape has somehow destroyed the tape heads core.

Man, EBay can really suck some time.

If everything was ok before, it's probably just clogged with crap. Denatured alcohol will get it completely free of tape residue. Make sure you hit every part of the tape path -- rollers, lifters, heads, etc. It's like syrup or tree sap -- seems like you never quite get all of it on the first cleaning. Sorry, it's not a quick and easy process by any measure.

I learned about sticky-shed the hard way too. My original thread should be interpreted as "If you see this thread and still buy that tape you are a dumbass" because the auction end was still in the future.

Now that the future has passed (I love messing with the time-space continuum). I guess you could still say, "If you saw this thread and still bought old Ampex tape, you are a dumbass." You could say you were a dumbass, but some will read that as saying you are no longer a dumbass.

I believe anyone who saw this thread and then bid on that particular tape was and still remains a dumbass until pardoned by the governor of their state -- something like that.


-Tim

 

[nettech]

My post dumb-ass status leaves me with 3 empty take-up reels

Hey Tim!

Yeah I'm pretty sure I got all the shed off after 2 more hours of cleaning, demagging, and also removing the whole damn tape head block from the machine.

Whilie I was at it, I did a quick touch-up on the alignment, and did a visual inspection of the R/P head under a magnifying glass. There didn't seem to be any strange head wear or unevenness of the pole pieces, just standard wear (prolly 50% worn if I'm estimating right).

Another try with the virgin 407 to check high freq and R/P levels of all 8 tracks. Everything was great, but a couple of minutes into the tape track 8 started dropping out again, anything from a blip to a couple of seconds of dramatic high freq loss and/or level changes. Tried w/o NR, still the same. Flipped the tape reels and the dropouts moved to track 1.

I'm thinking maybe it could be a R/P board that is crapped out, I might try swapping card first.

Beyond that, I can only figure that the R/P head is truly damaged and I best get a honing stone and oil and attempt a re-lapping.

http://www.jrfmagnetics.com/ seems to do re-conditioning of heads, but that will probably cost me more than the price of the machine

 

[A Reel Person]

Did you do a thorough retest?

...but a couple of minutes into the tape track 8 started dropping out again,... Flipped the tape reels and the dropouts moved to track 1.

Doesn't that indicate the dropout followed the tape? Could be a bad reel of tape. What's not clear, is if you did a full record/repro test after flipping the tape.

 

[nettech]

I believe I did the r/r test properly but.....

Doesn't that indicate the dropout followed the tape? Could be a bad reel of tape. What's not clear, is if you did a full record/repro test after flipping the tape.

I thought about the tape being defective, but if the dropouts were being caused by the R/P boards recording circuitry on track 8, then the same dropouts should occur on track 1 with the reels flipped (although the timing for the dropouts happen in reverse order).

This was the case. So I left the reels flipped and noted the dropouts and re-recorded onto tracks 1 and 8 over the top of the portion of tape that had the most noticable dropouts. On playback, track 1 was ok, but track 8 had a new random set of dropouts. Hmmmm.....

An interesting thing though, if I press lightly on the edge of the tape while it's playing back, I can get the dropouts to stop temporarily. But soon after I let go, it starts to happen again.

Looks to me like the only conclusion is that the head has some strange core damage that isn't viewable thru a magnifying glass. Times like this I wish I had a 16-track deck. Then it wouldn't matter so much if I lost a couple of edge-tracks.

 

[A Reel Person]

Okay!

A really stubborn bit of oxide could cause this. Although you describe cleaning the heads at length, did you really give the heads a vigorous scrubbing? Sometimes a normal "swabbing" isn't enough, and a good scrubbing with ample finger pressure applied directly to the swab on the head is required. It bears repeating, over & over until the problem is corrected.

PS: Is this a 388 we're talking about??

 

[Beck]

Everything Reel said, plus also be aware that sticky-shed can "contaminate" otherwise good tape. If the tape path was still dirty small shredded pieces and goo will transfer to the good tape causing dropouts and recontamination of the tape path. A tape cleaning or replacement may be in order. Sticky-shed is truly a gift that keeps on giving.

Before looking for other causes I would clean the tape path again and then load a tape that was not involved with the machine during the shedding event. Although a new tape cannot "catch" sticky-shed it can become a carrier of particles from the bad tape. So what you have is a cycle of recontamination from tape-to-machine and machine-to-tape -- very frustrating.

I went through this whole mess a couple years ago after taking my studio out of storage. An Ampex tape from 1986 started it all. I had a perfectly good Akai machine nearly torn down to the board level trying to figure out what was going on -- testing and troubleshooting for days. Then I read about sticky-shed -- oh. Since I had been out of recording circles for a few years I had missed the buzz about tape shed.

After cleaning every square inch of the tape path and buying brand new tape I found that my machine was in the same perfect condition I had left it in years before.

Yes, you could have a coincidental component failure, but I would make sure the shed business is behind you before go armed with a screwdriver.


-Tim

 

[A Reel Person]

So,... eh,...

Was this NOS Ampex 457 sealed in shrink wrap?

 

[nettech]

Okay, I'll try scrubbing the R/P head one more time.

Hey Reel & Beck,
I'll try one more time scrubbing the R/P head with the isopropyl and q-tips. I'll take the head block off so I can get better leverage and use even more pressure than I did the last two times. (any stories yet about damaging tape heads by over-cleaning? Maybe I'll be the first ). What the heck, I'll break open another roll of 407 and try testing again. You never know, I may get lucky on the 3rd try.

I really wish the problem would just go away, I'd rather be using the deck instead of fixing it. It already blew a filter cap and bridge rectifier last week. Luckily, I found replacements at a corner electronics supply house.

Reel, it's a Fostex Model 80, not a Tascam 388. I really don't like DBX NR, and after briefly owning a 70 lb tsr8 I swore that the next deck I get will be lightweight and portable. Dolby C @ 15ips gives just about as much hiss as I can stand. On the other hand it seems to be easier to drive the tape into saturation compared to DBX.

Reel, as a matter of fact the Ampex 457's reels were NOS with the shrink-wrap still intact.

 

[cjacek]

Reel, as a matter of fact the Ampex 457's reels were NOS with the shrink-wrap still intact.

Yeah, I've read that no matter if used or still sealed NOS, certain Ampex just goes bad in a pretty short period of time. Whether it's new or not, doesn't seem to make any difference ..

~Daniel

 

[Beck]

Hey Reel & Beck,
I'll try one more time scrubbing the R/P head with the isopropyl and q-tips. I'll take the head block off so I can get better leverage and use even more pressure than I did the last two times. (any stories yet about damaging tape heads by over-cleaning? Maybe I'll be the first ). What the heck, I'll break open another roll of 407 and try testing again. You never know, I may get lucky on the 3rd try.

I really wish the problem would just go away, I'd rather be using the deck instead of fixing it. It already blew a filter cap and bridge rectifier last week. Luckily, I found replacements at a corner electronics supply house.

Reel, it's a Fostex Model 80, not a Tascam 388. I really don't like DBX NR, and after briefly owning a 70 lb tsr8 I swore that the next deck I get will be lightweight and portable. Dolby C @ 15ips gives just about as much hiss as I can stand. On the other hand it seems to be easier to drive the tape into saturation compared to DBX.

Reel, as a matter of fact the Ampex 457's reels were NOS with the shrink-wrap still intact.

Check your Isopropyl. If it's only 70% you're not going to break the sticky-shed. You need 90+ Isopropyl or denatured alcohol. In my opinion denatured is the best to clean sticky heads with. You'll find it in the paint supplies of any hardware store.

-Tim

 

[nettech]

Okay, the final conclusion of this thread......

First off, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who helped me out by posting here

The 3rd cleaning yielded an unexpected result, the q-tip swab would begin to shred as I scrubbed near the 8th pole piece.

Okay, borrowed a "Loupe" from a neighbor, and finally saw the culprit, a pitted area of head surface just below the 8th pole.

When I received the unit, the headblock was missing a screw on the right side, so the R/P head was aligned to compensate for a couple of degrees of tilt as a result.

I saw the missing screw, put one in. and then did a quick re-align of the head to bring it back to proper tape wrap.

The pitted area is at an angle to the proper tape path, and that could be the reason for the "crazy" track 8 symptoms I've been experiencing. The edge of the tape "rides" right along the ridge of pitted area, and I can only imagine that is what is causing the "tape-to-head" separation that is giving the dropouts.

JRF says $85 to re-lap head. At this point, I think that is my only option. It's worth it to me now because I've spent over twice that amount just to stock up on rolls of tape and demag and cleaning supplies.

Since I haven't had the deck for very long, I'm assuming that the sticky-shed problem may have just amplified the track 8 problem to make it more apparent to me that there was indeed a flaw with the tape head.

Thanks gain everyone!

Chris