54 TK50 tapes on eBay

[Arno Kletzander]

Johnny Billquist <bqt at update.uu.se> wrote:
> The TK50 normally do not gum up. There are two problems with them, and 
> those problems have been around since day 1.
> The first one is that the heads get dirty. Cleaning with isopropanol or 
> similar with a lint-free pad solves that just fine.
> The second problem is that the tape pickup gets unhinged. Remove the 
> covers and then you can fix that easily.

So much for "YMMV": jkunz and I must have had some really bad tapes back
then at the VCFe a couple of years ago. When we tried to read them (in
a TK70, I think - does that make the difference?), they slowed down the
mechanism, produced a squealing sound and stuck to the head to the point
where in some cases the tape (carrier) broke in some cases. We did clean
the head and tape guide parts with IPA several times only to get the 
same problem again. I'm sure he can elaborate a bit more about the tapes
and the equipment used but I think I have it mostly correct.

So Long,
Arno