Kodak, some of which seems to use a different plastic base.
Steve Smolian
----- Original Message ----- From: "Casey, Michael T" <micasey@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 8:47 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Risk assessment tool--off brands
What off-brand tape stocks would you consider to be at greater risk than the standard Ampex/Scotch products? Shamrock? Irish? I might add Sarkes-Tarzian. Are there others that are consistently problematic?
Mike
-----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott D. Smith Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 1:36 PM To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Risk assessment tool
To confirm Mike's findings, we have also encountered any number of "white box" second grade tapes, mostly from the mid-fifties to early seventies, which exhibit what may appear at first glance to be sticky shed, but in fact suffer from other manufacturing problems (which is why the ended up in the second grade bin!). Some of these may respond to baking, others may not. (We just recently did a whole batch of tapes recorded on 1/4" 1 1/2 mil.acetate stock from a company out of New York called Magna-Reel. The stock appears to be second grade Ampex 611, with very poor slitting and areas where the coating was applied unevenly, in addition to some stiction).
Unlike stocks from Ampex, 3M, AGFA/BASF and others, whose characteristics have been well documented, the off-brand tapes are a challenge unto themselves. The tapes are seldom the same, even if they appear to be from the same batch, and vary wildly in both their physical and magnetic characteristics. All in all, a real nightmare for an archivist.
My advice is to tread carefully, and don't do any treatment that may be irreversible. (It should go without saying that you should never attempt to bake an acetate/mylar based tape, but I thought it would bear repeating-just in case a novice is reading through these posts!)
I would be most curious as to whether Bob could identify the two tapes that wouldn't respond to baking, though.
Scott D.Smith
Chicago Audio Works, Inc.
Chicago, IL
*****************************
Mwcpc6@xxxxxxx wrote:
In a message dated 1/4/2006 11:33:25 AM Eastern Standard Time, micasey@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Bob,
I'm curious about the two sss tapes that baking did not restore--any thoughts on what might have been different with those two tapes compared to the countless others that were succesfully baked?
Mike ***************
Not that it relates to Bob's case, but similar tapes that I've found were green-box "Shamrock" reels in which the oxide did not seem sticky,
but partly smoothly transferred to the backing of the previous layer, leaving effectively double coated tape.
Considering the source, this may have represented a catastrophic manufacturing defect that was passed on to the "white box" market.
Mike Csontos
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