Rogers_68 said:
is it that necessary to use the stainless cleaner?.
of course not. that's why I've posted that 'read blah blah about stainless steel cleaners' link, there's a good tip there from a smart lady
Sarah said:
Try using just plain water and a clean cloth. If that isn't as effective, try a mild detergent like dishwashing liquid. Glass cleaner can be great to remove smudges and fingerprints. Try these easy and less risky methods first. You may find you don't need a separate stainless steel cleaner.
also, unless I'm blind (there's a chance i'm) , but I see no much steel on 424mkII of any kind (stainless steel looks something like
THIS ... before you drink what's inside...)

Be careful using any kind of chemicals on your machine's enclosure. Do a little test first always.
Rogers_68 said:
do you usually buy the 60-min. tapes and fit as much as you can on them or do you buy the shorter length and do one song per tape?.
I'm not the right person to ask, I have not use a cassette portastudio ever in my life for tracking nor for anything

... so have no idea about what's the best. But I used to deal with cassettes allot in the past (as stereo recording) some for demos, remixing and allot for music editing programs and stuff like that. So I used order cassttes by 100 (case) of different length. I would imagine that it is better to have your songs each on seprate cassete. I used to have the whole "library" of all sorts of short recordings/programs... and kept them all on separate cassette, so when needed - just find the box - and you have it... no search/winding etc...
So if I would use cassette multitracker , I think I would use shorter cassttes of what ever length is the songs are about...
Here's example of the place you could order bulk shorter tapes, but usually you have to order a box of them (minimum 100 or so)... they are much cheaper that way:
chrom Hi-Bias audio cassttes / BlankMedia.net
I used to buy similar bulk cassettes from some place in NY ...they were like $0.20 or less a piece. If you do search you may find a place locally or close to where you are.