Re: [ARSCLIST] SSS Agfa [WAS: Ampex 456 and Shamrock 041 Manufacturing Specs?]

["Marie O'Connell" <azile50@xxxxxxxxx>]

The PEM 469 tends to come off in spiny sheets (if that is a proper
description) all over the guides and heads, ugly stuff that makes my skin
crawl!  Often I have found that the oxide has adhered to the backing and the
centre part of the magnetic layer is now on the backing of this rather nasty
tape.  In my experience it is worse as it gets to towards the hub.

With these very bad ones I found that baking just did not seem to help,
hence the Isopropyl Drip machine method came into play.  So, 469 shedded but
also seemed to present with LOL.  An interesting mixture to say the least.

Cheers
Marie

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 10:06 PM, Tommy Sjöberg <
tommy.sjoberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I worked on a digitizing project for Universal music some years ago, doing
> several thousand tapes. I totally agree about Ampex 456 - the few we didn't
> bake sure smelled like they would need baking, but weren't shedding, just
> yet.
>
> We never encountered a Basf tape that needed baking, and the same for Agfa
> with one, big exception and that is PEM 469, until they changed the
> formulation sometime around 1990. All earlier 469's were baked. A few 468's
> were also a bit sticky and were baked and then played fine, but if that was
> SSS I don't know.
>
> Regards,
>
> Tommy Sjöberg
> Folkmusikens hus
> Rättvik, Sweden
>
>
>
>
>> Date:    Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:06:06 -0000
>> From:    "Prentice, Will" <Will.Prentice@xxxxx>
>> Subject: SSS Agfa [WAS: Ampex 456 and Shamrock 041 Manufacturing Specs?]
>>
>> Hi Goran
>>
>> Thanks for the info. Re. Agfa, we've had several examples of PE 49
>> (double play, 7") which have proven sticky. According to the numbers in
>> the green leader tape there were two manufactured bad batches at least,
>> both seemingly bought by us at the same time, circa mid-1988. The
>> numbers to beware of are 01041 and 15383. All other PE 49 batches thus
>> far have been fine.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Will
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
>> [mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Goran Finnberg
>> Sent: 25 February 2009 12:38
>> To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Ampex 456 and Shamrock 041 Manufacturing Specs?
>>
>> Will Prentice:
>>
>>  > Responding to Richard's comment that "all tape
>>  > manufacturers seemed to have created batches of
>>  > tape which suffered from this [i.e., SSS]"
>>
>> I have never ever seen any BASF tape ever go sticky shed.
>>
>> BASF is one of the worlds biggest chemical companies.
>>
>> They have always claimed that they had all the knowldedge in house
>> together with making all the ingredients in house.
>>
>> So their position is that due to the above none of their tapes will
>> exhibit sticky shed as they knew how to avoid it.
>>
>> AGFA, it is the same except for some batches of Agfa 468 during half a
>> year or so.
>>
>> I have only seen one real of 468 go sticky despite having transferred
>> several hundred such reals over the years.
>>
>> In contrast it is almost a given that any reel of Ampex 456 will go
>> sticky for sure.
>>
>> And that is true over here since so far they all need baking.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Best,
>>
>> Goran Finnberg
>> The Mastering Room AB
>> Goteborg
>> Sweden
>>
>> E-mail: mastering@xxxxxxxxx
>>
>> Learn from the mistakes of others, you can never live long enough to
>> make them all yourself.    -   John Luther
>>
>