I've encountered a fair number of tapes where the oxide on the innermost magnetic tape wrap has stuck to the plastic leader and is partially stripped off, remaining adhered to the leader.
Unfortunately, if these tapes are prepared for broadcast, there is often audio on the very head of the tape, and so some of that audio is compromised as the oxide is stripped off.
Here are the steps I am currently taking:
1. If a plastic leader is present at the hub, I manually unwind the last wrap of magnetic tape VERY slowly from the leader. This seems to leave less oxide stuck to the plastic leader.
2. If there was audio on the pinned oxide, I flip the tape, and transfer the segment of leader with oxide on it. This segment of audio could conceivably be patched (summed?) back into the original audio. I've not tried to do this, but felt that it was important to capture and archive this bit of stripped audio for any future restoration work.
3. Transfer the tape as usual, and make appropriate notes in the metadata about the additional transfer of the pinned oxide.
There are clearly some dicey bits above. So here are the questions I would like to put to the tape archive community:
A. Do you replace the plastic leader with paper to prevent further oxide from getting pinned to the leader and stripped?
B. If you do replace with paper leader, what do you do with the plastic leader that has the oxide pinned to it?
This is further complicated by paper leader becoming a rare commodity. The latest plastic leader has no ink on it, which is a step in the right direction. I've seen plenty of old Scotch leader where the ink has gotten sticky and the oxide adheres to the ink and is stripped off.
It is unclear if oxide will get pinned to the current brands of plastic leader. Certainly the current plastic leader has a flat finish rather than glossy, which may (or may not) help prevent pinning.
In any case, if you have paper leader or ink-free plastic leader, replacing the old smooth plastic leader seems prudent.
As for what to do with the old plastic leader with oxide adhered to it, there's no nice easy way to store it separately without risking damage to the leader, or seeing it get lost or confused with other material. So I've thought about: (a) splicing the leader with stripped oxide to the leader that is on the outer tape wrap (usually the tail if tail out), and (b) making notes in pencil about the pinned oxide and noting direction and tracks, and (c) making sure there is enough leader so that the oxide pinned to the leader can be played.
What are others doing?
Eric Jacobs
The Audio Archive, Inc. tel: 408.221.2128 fax: 408.549.9867 mailto:EricJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx