Brian Roth
Well-known member
Damn.....my Otari problem wasn't nearly as bad! Any suggestions for some type of solvent to reduce the clean up headaches?
Bri
How to soften harded pinch rollers? (+ worn tape heads)
- Thread starter C.B. - Boudio
- Start date
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Bri
Lacquer thinners, turpentine (doesn’t always work), brake fluid (can be risky to use) seem to work on Urethane rubbers but you need to prevent any dripthrough ‘cos diluted it will leave horrible sticky film. Lacquer thinners seem to be safest and are quick evaporating. Some solvents will cause whitening on anodized aluminium parts so these need to be tested first in a non visible location - especially chlorine based cleaners should be avoided.
Brian Roth
Well-known member
Ok....thanks. There are SO many solvents available. Many others come to mind....naptha, xylene, mineral spirits.....
Sidebar. Decades ago when I was maintaining a newish MCI JH-16, I contacted the factory for a recommendation for cleaning the white ceramic capstan shaft. Factory service said to spray "Formula 409" household cleaner on a rag. Worked well....and I've been also cleaning my countertops with it ever since. <g>
Bri
Sidebar. Decades ago when I was maintaining a newish MCI JH-16, I contacted the factory for a recommendation for cleaning the white ceramic capstan shaft. Factory service said to spray "Formula 409" household cleaner on a rag. Worked well....and I've been also cleaning my countertops with it ever since. <g>
Bri
Yes - it pays to look at the original owners manuals for a lot of these pro recorders as they gave full guidelines for maintenance - unlike domestic stuff, the pro gear came with full service manuals, schematics - everything!! Unfortunately some machines were made with roller rubbers that at the time were amazingly good but with time comes the evident results - weeping rubber, or hardened and cracking but we move on and get the replacements - avoiding NOS rollers as they are likely to disintegrate on the job. It’s like magnetic tapes - buy new - they are readily available and are probably streets ahead of what we had available in the’70s through the ‘90s. Even back in the ‘80s the concept of cool storing and tape baking was around for tapes that were only 10 years old - part of studio life. Plastics have come a long way since then.
I remember the myth that CD’s were indestructible and an engineer friend of mine said “you can do anything to these and they’ll still play” so he threw one on the ground and ground it with his foot, put it in the CD player and all there was was stutter - hmmmm….. You can’t use them as ashtrays and still play them either. Expensive then too - blanks were $90+ to prevent pirating of music compared to $30 for a pre-recorded product.
It was supposedly a solution to high speed duplication of tapes.
I remember some pirate cassette tapes from Indonesia were hand recorded with a microphone in front of a ghetto blaster with badly colour photocopied covers sold to unwitting tourists.
I remember the myth that CD’s were indestructible and an engineer friend of mine said “you can do anything to these and they’ll still play” so he threw one on the ground and ground it with his foot, put it in the CD player and all there was was stutter - hmmmm….. You can’t use them as ashtrays and still play them either. Expensive then too - blanks were $90+ to prevent pirating of music compared to $30 for a pre-recorded product.
It was supposedly a solution to high speed duplication of tapes.
I remember some pirate cassette tapes from Indonesia were hand recorded with a microphone in front of a ghetto blaster with badly colour photocopied covers sold to unwitting tourists.
C.B. - Boudio
Well-known member
I don't know... Old BASF, Agfa, Emitape, Gevasonor, or Scotch (before the 1970s) are still fine. It are the American ones (Ampex, Shamrock,...) that disintegrate because some solvents got forbidden in the US. Some comparable BASF from the 1980s has problems too (because of that reason). So plastics back then were (over here!) at least 'good enough' I think
I have recent (<25 years) BASF/Emtec tape, which looks just the same as modern RTM, that leaves residue like crazy, almost inusable; heads are covered to perfection in maybe a minute or so.
I really am thrilled to see what RTM or ATR will look like in a year or 10 (it'll be fine I guess, but you never know!)
Some tapes recorded in the ‘70s were already dying in the ‘80s and there was a known finite shelf life for some brands of tape. By the time tape started to be overthrown by digital a lot of digital storage of multitracks started (for those who could afford it) in case of tape degeneration but tape continued to be used for a long time after. Some clients requested digital backup of their multitrack session tapes as part of their recording process. Didn’t take long, even for an album, and it came from the machine it was recorded on so was as good as you could get.
Agfa, Ampex and 3M all used a polyurethane binder (licensed to Agfa Gevaert I believe) until Agfa recognised the problem and changed binders. BASF took over the magnetic tape division of Agfa in 1991 IIRC. If you have Agfa tape after the change it should be ok. Any of these earlier tapes are BBU’s (Bake Before Use) today and you take your chances. BASF used their own binder - not polyurethane. We changed from Ampex & 3M to BASF, when the 911 tape came out, to use as studio stock and only ordered in the other brands as requested as a lot of tapes were session hire only tapes and wiped after mixdown - held for two months then wiped.
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