18 May
2019
18 May
'19
7:33 a.m.
Just a reminder: "Tape seal" is a generic name (or defunct trademark?) for the
wrap-around plastic tape hanger for half-inch magtape reels. There's a flexible white
(soft plastic) or beige (hard plastic) belt with a clamp (sometimes black) and a hanger.
They usually had a little place to put a label in them too. They usually came with a new
reel of tape but you could also buy them by themselves.
20 years ago I had thousands of 9-tracks hanging from decaying tape seals. Every couple
days I would find a couple of tapes dropped to the floor and their tape seal broken. At
the time it was no problem to find surplus tapes with recent tape seals to rehang them,
and tape seals were still available new. Most of mine came from Southern California where
I think the ozone in the atmosphere severely limited useful life of the plastics.
Here in 2019 I only have a few dozen tapes and few remaining tape seals. I suspect any
source I found of tape seals would be selling 20-year old tape seals.
Is there any outfit that sells "new tape seals"? Or a preferred better way to
hang tapes in 2019? It wouldn't surprise me if an archivist told me hanging tapes was
the wrong way to store them but I never have really noticed (temperature/humidity changes
seem to be a way bigger problem than storage orientation).
P.S. Yes all these tapes were imaged decades ago. Not really sure why I still have them
around unless say I need to boot a PDP-11 or VAX OS from 9-track which I guess hasn't
happened in at least a decade for me.
Tim N3QE
8:25 a.m.
On 5/18/19 7:33 AM, Shoppa, Tim via cctalk wrote:
Is there any outfit that sells "new tape
seals"? Or a preferred better way to hang tapes in 2019?
FWIW, IBM auto-load hard plastic seems to be holding up better, you might be able to find
a small
quantity of those around.
Failing that, late era crappy tape might be found, and the seals scavenged though the
price is
probably prohibative.
9:36 a.m.
On 5/18/19 8:25 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
On 5/18/19 7:33 AM, Shoppa, Tim via cctalk wrote:
Exactly. After cruising for about a year or so, looking for tape seal
replacements, I decided that none were to be had. Not even the few
places that still sell NOS tapes had any to spare for any price. And
any old stock is likely to be deteriorating. I suspect that no new tape
seals have been produced in the last 20 years.
After doing more investigation, I settled on 800' 16mm film cans made
for archival preservation. There appear to be two types (I have samples
of both)--one vented and the other not. This makes sense as a lot of
acetate-based film stock was manufactured and, as it decays, gives off
acetic acid, which, unless removed, further corrupts the film base.
Of course, if you have the old Wright-Line style of tape racks, you
can't hang film cans.
Fortunately, all of the magnetic tape that I've seen is mylar-based,
which doesn't have the problem, so no venting is necessary. Magtape
issues are mostly due to deterioration of the tape binder, for which
"baking" can go a long way to at least temporarily remedy.
Both types of film cans are made from polypropylene, as far as I can
tell, so they're probably good for my lifetime, at least. A 10.5" reel
of tape fits quite nicely, such that no additional support is needed.
Larry Urbanski seems to have the best price on the cans, about $5.75
each, but he'll negotiate for quantity.
There may be better solutions, but I haven't come up with one yet. It's
a bit funny; I can remember when the tape seal adoption was causing
dumpster-loads of hard plastic tape cases to be scrapped. The cases
that remain tend to be intact, even after 50 years.
--Chuck
Is there any outfit that sells "new tape
seals"? Or a preferred better way to hang tapes in 2019?
FWIW, IBM auto-load hard plastic seems to be holding up better, you might be able to find
a small
quantity of those around.
Failing that, late era crappy tape might be found, and the seals scavenged though the
price is
probably prohibative. 
19 May
19 May
6:37 p.m.
At 09:36 AM 18/05/2019 -0700, Chuck wrote:
There may be better solutions, but I haven't come
up with one yet. It's
a bit funny; I can remember when the tape seal adoption was causing
dumpster-loads of hard plastic tape cases to be scrapped. The cases
that remain tend to be intact, even after 50 years.
Just a thought - I buy small ziplock bags of various sizes in bulk from Aliexpress. Very
cheap.
I use them around the workshop, electronics, and for filing B5-sized documents in storage
cubes.
It seems likely there would be ziplock bags that fit tape reels. With a choice of light
or
heavy duty film thickness.
Pros:
* Keep dust, moisture and pests away from the tape.
* Cheap and always available.
* Takes up no significant extra space.
* Allows inclusion of things like information sheets, keeping them associated with
specific tapes.
* Can put big labels on the bags.
Cons:
* Not as neat as ring seals.
* Doesn't allow hanging.
* Bags provide no support for the reel edges though, so you'd have to be careful with
stacking.
Guy
8:04 p.m.
On 5/19/19 6:37 PM, Guy Dunphy wrote:
Just a thought - I buy small ziplock bags of various
sizes in bulk from Aliexpress. Very cheap.
I use them around the workshop, electronics, and for filing B5-sized documents in storage
cubes.
It seems likely there would be ziplock bags that fit tape reels. With a choice of light
or
heavy duty film thickness.
Pros:
* Keep dust, moisture and pests away from the tape.
* Cheap and always available.
* Takes up no significant extra space.
* Allows inclusion of things like information sheets, keeping them associated with
specific tapes.
* Can put big labels on the bags.
Cons:
* Not as neat as ring seals.
* Doesn't allow hanging.
A lot of what I'm given to process are reels from the 1960s and 1970s.
Many, by the time they reach me, have suffered some reel damage.
Plastic gets brittle with age and tossing 30 tapes in a box and shipping
them ground certainly doesn't help! You try to tell the customer to
ship the tapes in no more than about 10 to a box (25 lbs), but the guys
in the shipping department figure that if double-walled big boxes work,
then they'll just fill them up and toss in some bubble wrap...
Sometimes, just removing the broken off sections is sufficient if
they're small, but I've had to resort to using solvent cement to stick
bits of reels back together sufficiently to mount the reel (I use MEK,
but keep a separator between the reel flange and tape until the stuff
dries). I've even had a couple of two-part reels come apart. Ziploc
freezer bags in the one and two-gallon size are supermarket items here,
but they just don't offer enough protection.
Thanks for the idea, though!
--Chuck
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