NOS 3M 966 1” Mastering Tape: bake or not?

flyingace

flyingace

Active member
My Tascam MS-16 came with three NOS reels of 966. How do I know if I need to bake them to use or are they sticky shed safe. They appear to be in excellent condition, visually, and appear unused, tails out with manufacturer’s tape on them in plastic cases. TIA
 
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Sorry all. I’m reading the 17 page sticky shed post now. If I find my answer I’ll delete this post
 
flyingace said:
My Tascam MS-16 came with three NOS reels of 966. How do I know if I need to bake them to use or are they sticky shed safe. They appear to be in excellent condition, visually, and appear unused, tails out with manufacturer’s tape on them in plastic cases. TIA
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I think you mean 996. Regardless, if a tape has sticky-shed, don't use it for production even after baking. It's a false economy. Get new tape.
 
RRuskin said:
I think you mean 996. Regardless, if a tape has sticky-shed, don't use it for production even after baking. It's a false economy. Get new tape.
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Thanks, dyslexic moment :)

It looks good, but I was hoping someone would know if it was one of the good ones... Oh well, I agree, I'll likely just buy new tape
 
The only way to know is see how the tape behaves on your machine. If you hear any kind of mechanical squeal or excess friction as it plays, get it away from the heads & off of the machine.
 
RRuskin said:
The only way to know is see how the tape behaves on your machine. If you hear any kind of mechanical squeal or excess friction as it plays, get it away from the heads & off of the machine.
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Yup, it’s bad. It didn’t come tails out (per the instruction sheet inside), so I was loading to a reel and it started to slow down halfway though, left a bunch of gunk on the lifters, but I never hit play. Cleaned up the machine after I rewound it back to it’s original reel.
I guess my choice is bake it and deal with more shed or just ditch it and keep the reels. I have already ordered some Recording The Masters SM911.
 
Ditch it. Don’t keep it and bake it repeatedly. Fools errand, bad idea, etc. the only reason to bake tape is to transfer material off the tape. And you typically cannot tell if tape is bad until you thread it up and run it. Sometimes you’ll know right away, like squealing, or sometimes a full servo tension machine will just act weird, jerking action on the tension arms, that kind of thing…and then of course in extreme cases the oxide will just scrape right off the base onto your tape path in a pile of zombie skin goo. But almost always it looks okay to the eye. But if you ever get ready to thread it and anything flakes off or it seems tacky to itself, bake it, transfer it, dump it, or if there’s no material on it, trash it. That’s why it’s important to know what tapes are almost always bad, and those that are suspect. No sense damaging your machine if it’s known garbage. And unfortunately the list is growing all the time. Late Ampex branded or Quantegy branded 499 has always been pretty safe, but I’ve got some 1” Ampex 499 that squeals, and some 1/2” Quantegy 499 that does the same thing.
 
I think 966 was renamed 986 later on. It was 3M's equivalent of Ampex 456 whereas Ampex came out with 499 for use at elevated levels after 3M came out with 996. I used some 966 back in the 1990s and it has now gone slightly sticky - not as bad as Ampex from the same era but not usable without baking.
 
sweetbeats said:
Ditch it. Don’t keep it and bake it repeatedly. Fools errand, bad idea, etc. the only reason to bake tape is to transfer material off the tape. And you typically cannot tell if tape is bad until you thread it up and run it. Sometimes you’ll know right away, like squealing, or sometimes a full servo tension machine will just act weird, jerking action on the tension arms, that kind of thing…and then of course in extreme cases the oxide will just scrape right off the base onto your tape path in a pile of zombie skin goo. But almost always it looks okay to the eye. But if you ever get ready to thread it and anything flakes off or it seems tacky to itself, bake it, transfer it, dump it, or if there’s no material on it, trash it. That’s why it’s important to know what tapes are almost always bad, and those that are suspect. No sense damaging your machine if it’s known garbage. And unfortunately the list is growing all the time. Late Ampex branded or Quantegy branded 499 has always been pretty safe, but I’ve got some 1” Ampex 499 that squeals, and some 1/2” Quantegy 499 that does the same thing.
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jamesperrett said:
I think 966 was renamed 986 later on. It was 3M's equivalent of Ampex 456 whereas Ampex came out with 499 for use at elevated levels after 3M came out with 996. I used some 966 back in the 1990s and it has now gone slightly sticky - not as bad as Ampex from the same era but not usable without baking.
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I agree, I’m going to ditch it, snag the reels for future pancake purchases (if I can find 1” in pancake form)

Good to know about the 966 being made to be like 456, likely won’t have to recalibrate machine much with the RTM SM911 I just ordered! Still need to get an MRL tape though… dread spending $500+ for that, was hoping the previous owner still had one… but that said, it would probably be sticky anyway!
 
Expect to revise though…if it was calibrated for +6 tape then if it worked for the 966, yes it should work for the SM911, but the bias requirements could be vastly different, so set the bias at least. The other thing to consider though is you have no idea what fluxivity the machine was setup at. Previous owner might have done something less typical and calibrated it at 320nWb/m or something with the +6 tape, so just be aware that just because he was using +6 tape doesn’t mean it was setup according to the factory guidance at 250nWb/m. I would at least check the meter calibration, rebias, and see if you like what’s happening with that, but in the future get yourself a calibration tape so you can customize your setup for your application. It’s one of the unsung awesomenesses of working with tape; being able to play with different operating level tapes and tweak the fluxivity and bias levels. Anyway…get tape…check meters…set bias…have fun.
 
sweetbeats said:
Expect to revise though…if it was calibrated for +6 tape then if it worked for the 966, yes it should work for the SM911, but the bias requirements could be vastly different, so set the bias at least. The other thing to consider though is you have no idea what fluxivity the machine was setup at. Previous owner might have done something less typical and calibrated it at 320nWb/m or something with the +6 tape, so just be aware that just because he was using +6 tape doesn’t mean it was setup according to the factory guidance at 250nWb/m. I would at least check the meter calibration, rebias, and see if you like what’s happening with that, but in the future get yourself a calibration tape so you can customize your setup for your application. It’s one of the unsung awesomenesses of working with tape; being able to play with different operating level tapes and tweak the fluxivity and bias levels. Anyway…get tape…check meters…set bias…have fun.
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Thanks, I’ll have to get that MRL tape then to do that rebiasing. I was told Best to use 250nWb/m at +3. When we did alignment and calibration at Tape Camp (Welcome to 1979) back in February, it was just a 2 track machine, 16 tracks will take a little more time And I hope not too many of those pots are buried deep on the R/P cards. I hope to find someone who has done it on the MS-16 and has a write up since it will be very different than the MCI/Mara machine I did it on for practice.
 
I just ordered the MRL tape at 250/+3 IEC for this machine. Along with new tape. Time to get this machine up and running.
Thank you all for your responses and help!
 
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