Tascam Ms16 Reel Table Height Adjustment for new tape

[AllenM]

Hi everyone I hope you all can help. I have been using quantegy 456 1" tape on 10.5 in reels on my Tascam MS16. I just purchased an ATR magnetics 1" tape. When i play the new reel, the tape rubs against the reel making a nasty sound. I need to push the reel downwards because there is alot of space on the top that can be evened out. I looked in my manual and read the directions on how to adjust the Reel table height. I am confused on step 2. because I cannot find those screws on the machine.

 

[miroslav]

Before you get into all that....if all your Quantegy/Ampex reels were playing without the rub...then it may be just that new reel. Check it against the ones you know play without issues.

If you are now going to use the ATR stuff, and all their reels line up that way and there's nothing specifically *wrong* with them...then yeah, make the adjustment.
The other thing you can do if this is just one reel....is to transfer it to another empty reel that you know works fine....and just bypass the tape guides....go directly reel-to-reel. It's a little tricky, and you have to engage the guides to make it work....but I've done that when I didn't want the tape dragging across my guides (for whatever reason). Just watch the speed....it CAN get away from you!
It sounds to me like the ATR reel is much thicker, and so it rises up higher. If that's the problem, you can also remove just the lower side of the ATR reel, and replace it with a thinner flange from another reel...assuming the screw holes line-up...which they should, unless ATR uses more screws than Quantegy/Ampex.

Other than that, I can't tell you where the two screws are for the brake drum...I'm not familiar with that deck, and your image is real blurry, so hard to tell from that.
Someone with an MS-16 will chime in......

 

[The Ghost of FM]

Yeah, swapping out the thicker reel flange for a thinner one seems like the less tedious scenario.

Cheers!

 

[AllenM]

yeah, the ATR tape reel seems thicker... I'll try and find a ampex reel on ebay.

 

[fgonza2]

this is not hard to do. the ideal situation is for you to find a reel height that can accommodate the two reel sizes. Maybe when you run on quantegy/ampex you are close to rubbing but not there. So it should be possible to adjust it to serve both. That's what i will try. The screws are under the reel table, remove the front panel and look at them from the top of the recorder, rotate the reel tables by hand and you will see them. This is a good design as it has a center screw that lets you fine adjust the height, which is something that other tascams dont have. This is not hard to do at all, you should be able too. Make sure you use the proper allen wrench. Also take a close look at the tape guides & tension rollers to make sure that the tape does not skew due to the new height. You may want to take a look at that before changing the height with a good reel, just to make sure you dont have that problem today.