A couple suggestions about your cleaning techniques: when you are wiping the heads don’t wipe perpendicular to the laminations (don’t scrub up and down)…always wipe parallel to them (side-to-side). Always use a clean area of whatever you are using to wipe the heads as you move from component to component, rather than applying or re-applying a dirty area from the last component to the next component. When you are cleaning rolling components, like the rolling guides, you want to hold the cleaning tool/device/materials against the roller and turn the roller with your other hand so you can really clean the whole surface, and get into the corners. If you don’t get into the corners you’ll leave debris there that could migrate, and then what’s the point of cleaning anything? Lastly, you should clean every component in the tape path…you didn’t clean the takeup rolling guide, the lifters, or any of the static guides. It’s pretty common for there to be some accumulation in the corners of the static guides…and I can see that in the pictures. I think the foam applicator you are using to clean is fine for the heads and capstan, but it’s not at all ideal for getting the guides and other components. I use cotton makeup remover pads, the circular 100% cotton kind. They hold the dirt well and I can really get into the nooks and crannies and really clean each component, and this is critical if there’s some edge shed. And the fact you have some heavier (although I wouldn’t say it’s terrible, but it could be better) accumulation at the bottom of the contact band on the capstan shaft tells me either your tape path needs some mechanical tweaking and the tape is being drawn down to the bottom of one of the static guides, or it’s the issue I mentioned earlier where if the tape path wear pattern is established by Ampex/Quantegy tape and then you put something else on, you can have edge shed issues because the Ampex/Quantegy tape was slit slightly more narrow than the standard. So these are things that have to be evaluated. Also, do you clean the pinch roller? You should..lint-free cotton cloth and water…maybe window cleaner if there’s is stubborn build-up.
If you are having trouble with poor frequency response or signal level during playback, I’d stop, pull the tape away from the heads, and clean whichever head you are monitoring. If the cleaning changes things for the better, you’re dealing with a debris issue. If it doesn’t, I’d be looking at issues with oxidized amp card contacts or failed edge connector solder joints or relay issues.
The updated pics of the heads do help me see better. Again, assuming the lifter assembly and heads are original to the machine, and, based on the history you shared and assuming that’s all true, your 38 looks to have relatively low miles on it.
So I don’t know where you’re at with your issues or all this advice, but that’s what I have at this stage.
Well, surely you’re responsible for some wear…we inflict wear on the tape path every time we load tape and engage any mode that moves tape across the tape path. But how long have you owned this machine? For some reason I was thinking you haven’t had it a long time but now I’m not seeing that in any of your posts, so I must be making it up in my head, and maybe you’ve had it awhile. But regardless, tape machines wear. It’s just a fact of tape machine life. Fast winding isn’t hard on the heads unless you defeat the lifters while winding to audition and scrub the audio. So don’t fret about doing a lot of fast winding. Sure it puts wear on the lifters but who cares…those are not critical components as far as wear concern IMO. And what you’re doing is no different than what any tape machine in a studio would be doing all day long…like in busy professional studios the tape machine is running all day and into the evening except for in between sessions during tear down and setup. But hours every day recording, reproducing and fast-winding. You don’t use your tape machine that much. And refer back to my very real-world account from somebody I personally know who operated multiple tape machines every day for years and years, and that MM-1200 that ran for hours every day for 8 years and that resulted in 15% wear *after* the relap (any relap takes away some of the tip depth as a result of restoring the head profile). So maybe those 8 years of frequent professional use caused 10% wear? So…you should relax about the wear. My 2 pence.
i feel fortunate that nothing went horribly wrong and my heads still look and sound totally fine. perhaps i’ve extended the lifespan of those lifters too by completely bypassing them.