29 Aug
2015
29 Aug
'15
10:46 a.m.
On 08/29/2015 08:57 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
Mid-80's are the worst, especially Memorex, and
BASF, which everyone
used because they were cheap. Whatever HP bought for their
distribution tapes (probably Graham Magnetics) is very good. IBM tape
is good too. DEC used crap tape for their distributions.
I'll disagree about the worst. 70s Scotch 810x tapes from the 70s
suffer from "sticky bleed", where the binder has bled through the oxide
layer. The result is that the tape sticks to anything--heads, tape,
capstans, guide rollers, etc. A tape cleaning machine doesn't do
anything for that.
Scotch 800 series audio tape suffers the same issue and is well-known to
the tapeheads crowd.
My solution was to take a thick felt strip, anoint it with D5
(cyclomethicone) lubricant and attach it to a large round guide (made
from a 2" PVC pipe cap) on my tape cleaning
machine. Make a pass (you
may need to add D5 about midway through), read
immediately. D5
evaporates fairly quickly (< 1 hour) so re-treatment may be necessary.
Fortunately the stuff is utterly inert and doesn't permanently affect
the tape.
Needless to mention, you should clean your equipment after using this stuff.
--Chuck