Quantegy 456 Sticky Shed Era?

sol7

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I got these tapes with a R2R I bought a couple or so years ago. Are these past the era of 456 SSS fame or is all 456 tape subjected to SSS?

By the way, wasn't there a sticky here that had a comprehensive listing of tapes subjected to SSS?

quantegy456-1.jpg

quantegy456-2.jpg
 
Since you already have the tapes, how about trying to spin them and see for yourself ;) It's not just a matter of date, some tapes have SSS and some don't - same type, same batch, different outcome. As an example, I have an Ampex 456 without a trace of SSS, and a boxful of Quantegy 499, about 1/4 of which are plagued while the other 75% are fine. Just a fact of life.

Here is a list of tapes prone to degradation from a reputable professional restorer.
 
I guess I'll have to try it out, but if it sheds you're cleaning it....:biggrin:
 
Don't see the date code but I just rolled all my Quantegy 456 and a number of 406 through my machine with no issues.
 
I guess I'll have to try it out, but if it sheds you're cleaning it....:biggrin:
If you play a tape just for SSS testing you don't need to reach that point. As soon as the tape starts squealing you will know that it is toast, and there won't be much cleaning to do. In any case there is no other way to check tapes for SSS.
 
I guess jlb2 is right, thread it on the deck and give it a two second spin. You'll know in a hurry.

I have Quantegy and Ampex 456 spools here and never had a problem with the Quantegy tape, that way. One of the Ampex spools squeaks, though.

And, I've got a lot of Maxell XL-l 35-180B, bought in the early '80s. In all this time, they all played just fine. In the last two or so years, three of them are SS. Those tapes were easy to find and buy then, and I've bought a bunch.

I might try the Nu-Finish treatment on them. And I know, the first time I ran into it, I didn't know what SSS was. I think I spent twenty minutes cleaning all that stuff off the tape path. Once or twice through that and you hope to not have to go through that again. A second or two won't leave much, and not like me, while trying to figure out what that was, and after a few minutes, I guess I had worked it in pretty good.

What a mess it was!

Lu.
 
I hear ya about not knowing what was going on. Same happened to me with my first experience with SSS. And it was Ampex 456. I think I used a putty knife to scrap it off the heads and guides.....

Maybe this weekend I'll throw the pancakes on the Tascam to check them out.
 
Sol7;

Something else!

It's not a good idea to scrape around on heads and guides with anything metal. You wouldn't want to leave scratches on anything and send your tape off to early damage, using it.

Use alcohol, 70 or 91 percent, and Q-tips, or cotton balls, a soft cloth if you need to.

That and elbow grease does it.

Really! Best not to use something metal. And, if the metal is magnetized, that metal can magnetize that heads for good. The only way to combat that is to replace the head set all together.

There is no better way than to get in there and scrub. A PITA it is but that's the way to do it.

Lu.
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Ha. Yeah, I was just joking about the putty knife. I thought I put a smile face after that.

So far the first pancake is looking good.

quantegy456.jpg
 
Ahhh, yeah, OK;

I wrote in because I couldn't imagine anybody scraping up the tape path on such a nice Tascam deck.

Your case of tape is from Quantagy so, for all I know, they should be good.

Lu.
 
A temporary cure was 130 degrees at 50 % humidity for 30 minutes or was it longer? Thats why I got a Marantz CD recorder. Dubbed all my tapes to CD. I wish I had found my Maxell UD tape sooner.
 
A temporary cure was 130 degrees at 50 % humidity for 30 minutes or was it longer? Thats why I got a Marantz CD recorder. Dubbed all my tapes to CD. I wish I had found my Maxell UD tape sooner.

The Ampex recipe of baking tapes states a minimum temperature of 50°C (122°F) to be effective, preferably 54°C (129°) which is the commonly used setting, The duration varies according according to the case at hand, it can range from an hour to 16 hours or more depending of the severity. Since the purpose of the treatment is to remove the humidity in the tape, you want the air dry. 50% is way too high, but this is not a problem since heating air reduces its humidity. If a first treatment does not bring enough improvement, it is possible to do it again. A baked tape is playable for a week or two, and then it is highly advisable to put it back into storage in case a better way to restore it appears in the future (and you can also bake it again, should you need to). Almost all this information is in the original Ampex patent available here: http://www.richardhess.net/restoration_notes/USP5236790.pdf.

Note 1: baking is just a moniker, and does not accurately describe how it is done. Actually it cannot be done in a kitchen oven which has very poor regulation at such a low temperature. The tape can be damaged by overheating, so don't use your kitchen oven. Professional restorers often use laboratory ovens that are suitable for the job. Unfortunately a laboratory oven is a bulky, expensive item and not many people have access to one. Other common alternatives are food dryers (http://www.tangible-technology.com/tape/baking1.html), or just a cardboard box with a hairdryer as a heat source and an industrial thermostat for regulation : simple, dirt cheap and still effective, it's what I use.

Note 2: don't bake just any tape that sheds. Sticky shed is just one mode of failure, and heating a tape suffering from another mode can worsen its condition instead of improving it. Refer to the list of tapes prone to decaying I gave in my first post, if you know the type of the one you want to treat, it will give you the most common mode of failure for this type, and you will be able to attempt a suitable treatment. This article discusses the matter in a fairly comprehensive manner: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/history/HESS_Tape_Degradation_ARSC_Journal_39-2.pdf.
 
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Ahhh, yeah, OK;
Your case of tape is from Quantagy so, for all I know, they should be good.

Unfortunately it is not always the case. Richard Hess' list (link above) mentions it. He had not yet seen the case when he wrote the previous versions of his list, which is probably where you found this outdated info that Quantegy tapes are safe. Also, I have already said that I do have decaying Quantegy 499 myself. So those tapes are definitely worth checking.
 
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Would expect the bake time is a variable as there are 456 tapes in ¼, ½, 1 and 2 inch widths. A two inch tape might take a bit longer to bake that those little home recordist tapes of ¼".
 
I only had 2 pancakes in that case. Getting ready to test the second one and transfer it to a metal reel tonight.

I don't have anything worth going through the trouble of "baking". Unless that Ramone interview tape is worth something. Couldn't you just put the tape in a sealed bag with desiccant to remove the moisture? Or does it also need the heat to "cure" it?
 
Would expect the bake time is a variable as there are 456 tapes in ¼, ½, 1 and 2 inch widths. A two inch tape might take a bit longer to bake that those little home recordist tapes of ¼".

The tape width is just one of the many parameters involved in the necessary time. This is covered in the Ampex patent, see the link in my post above.
 
I only had 2 pancakes in that case. Getting ready to test the second one and transfer it to a metal reel tonight.

I don't have anything worth going through the trouble of "baking". Unless that Ramone interview tape is worth something. Couldn't you just put the tape in a sealed bag with desiccant to remove the moisture? Or does it also need the heat to "cure" it?

Just dessicating woudln't help, you really need to heat those tapes. But you can do it effectively and on the cheap if you have a food dehydrator, or just a hairdrier, a cardboard box and an industrial thermostat - the latter is the only thing I had to buy, it cost me all of 20 €. OTOH storing a baked tape in a sealed bag with silicagel could possibly help make it playable for a little longer, but my own experience shows that it does not work miracles, so I don't do it any more.
 
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Thank you for the great answer its been so long since I dubbed my reel to reel tape to CD I had totally put the issue out of my mind. I didn't know you could repeat the process.

With streaming, the CD dubs of LP's I made long ago are being replaced when the digital versions sound better. But most of the time that is not the case. Especially with some Command, Mercury, Deutsche Gramophone and Sheffield recordings.
 
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