Tom (and all),
Apologies if my response seemed harsh, i certainly wasn't directing anything at you personally..
I do however think it's important for us to keep in mind the fact that a good percentage of the readers on this list are not engineers but rather representatives of collecting bodies (institutional or otherwise) trying to get a grip on how to manage their holdings.
With that in mind, and given our well-intentioned propensity to look at problems from as many angles as possible, i fear that sometimes we have the tendency to dive head-first into worst-case scenarios rather than looking at David's original post as a more general problem.
To be sure, I haven't disagreed with anything you've offered to this discussion. It is important to me, though, that we make this forum as helpful as possible to those without the resources to, say, establish tape playback capabilities within a cold storage environment.
And that's all i'm going to say on that matter. Four posts in 24hrs is way over my limit. (hint hint..)
cheers, Brandon Burke
On Oct 9, 2006, at 3:08 PM, Tom Fine wrote:
Hi Brandon:
Who's talking about "delegitimizing" anything? That's what's bananas! Do whatever you want with your tapes, everyone, please. Hopefully they will play well and true and not be ruined with whatever processes you decide to employ. I'm just speaking as someone who has quite a bit of experience with problem tapes and I'm saying wait for advice from someone who I would consider expert in problem tapes. Anyone can do whatever they want, it's your tapes. Hopefully they won't get ruined (and if they do get ruined, hopefully they're not the tapes that contain that secret section of the Nixon tapes).
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Brandon Burke" <burke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 4:44 PM Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Tape baking question
Some good (and certainly responsible) points here, but I feel compelled to say that i'm uncomfortable with the idea that there exists somewhere a *true* sticky shed, and that only tapes "bound together until treated" qualify. This not only delegitimizes anything less than over-the-top obvious hydrolysis, it also implies that (1) absolutely any and every reel of poly tape, provided it contains at least one splice, should be frozen before playback just in case the inner splice is sticky and (2) we all have the option of freezing reels and playing them back in a refrigerator.
That's bananas..
Brandon Burke
On Oct 9, 2006, at 3:32 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
Hi Brandon:
The problem is, there could well be parts of the tape pack that are stuck together (pinning and I forgot the other word Richard uses). So unrolling those parts before they are treated will destroy them (peel the oxide off). I asked Richard about this very type of reel before and if I recall the answer is freeze it and then play it cold (ie tape machine in a fridge) at very slow speed, which should unstick the bound portions enough to spool onto a reel for baking. The other parts, like 176, don't respond to baking and need the full cold treatment, if I recall. It's much more complicated that just spooling pieces off because true sticky-shed tape is probably bound together until treated and thus will be destroyed by spooling until it's treated.
Don't take what I say is gospel truth. Let Richard weigh in since he's done the research.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Brandon Burke" <burke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 1:52 AM Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Tape baking question
First of all, i mean not to steal Richard H's thunder, as he knows quite a bit more about this subject than me.
That said, it strikes me that the solution proposed here only accounts for splices *so* sticky as to be identifiable by touch alone. Thus allowing selections exhibiting less ridiculously obvious stages of hyrolysis to miss the boat.
Brandon Burke
Quoting Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
Guys, this is not all correct. Wait for Richard Hess to chime in.
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Lennick" <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 10:38 PM Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Tape baking question
> That was sort of what I expected the answer to be. > > dl > > "joe@xxxxxxxxxxx" wrote: > >> If memory serves, baking is known to be detrimental to some types of >> tape, so I'd suggest separating them out as best you can, bake, >> reassemble and Xfer. >> >> Joe Salerno >> Industrial Video Services >> PO Box 273405 >> Houston Texas 77277-3405 >> >> David Lennick wrote: >> > Here's one for the team. Let's say you have a reel made up of several short >> > pieces of tape, either a compilation or a master or just something where it was >> > convenient to group similar pieces of material together. Let's say SOME of the >> > selections are recorded on 176, some on 456, some on god knows what....and of >> > course, now you have a tape that has sticky shed on only some of the tracks. Do >> > you bake the whole thing or try and remove only the portions that need >> > treatment and bake them? >> > >> > --Stuck >> >
-- Brandon Burke Archivist for Audio Collections Hoover Institution Archives Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-6010 vox: 650.724.9711 fax: 650.725.3445 email: burke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
____________________________________ Brandon Burke Archivist for Audio Collections Hoover Institution Archives Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-6010 vox: 650.724.9711 fax: 650.725.3445 email: burke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
____________________________________
Brandon Burke
Archivist for Audio Collections
Hoover Institution Archives
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6010
vox: 650.724.9711
fax: 650.725.3445
email: burke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx