Hello i am curious as to how i would go about relubricating some of my analog tapes i have. They seem to have a lubrication problem... perhaps? not sure yet, not a sticky shed problem i dont think, i get white stuff coming off the tape and sticking to the heads, i understand this to be lack of lubrication? correct me if i am wrong. i have baked them and they seem not to respond to this so i believe that they are not suffering from sticky shed syndrome but rather lubrication problem? i am going to try rebaking again. maybe it will work i dunno, either way i am curious of how to relubricate a tape.
so i am wondering the process of relubricating the tapes.
is this an easy process? or should it be done by someone else?
who does this relubricating of tapes?
i would prefer to do it myself if possible, so i am curious what is the process of relubricating a tape?
materials needed? etc?

i am trying to relubricate 2inch polyester tape i also have a large amount of 1/4 inch tapes that i will get to enventually and i want to know how to deal with this problem
thanks

The lubrication they are talking about is imbedded particles in the blend of goo that creates the recording media applied to the mylar "tape". you can never "re-lubricate" a tape. if you were to "lubricate" the tape with some slippery stuff the thickeness of the lub would move the tape away from the head ~1mm which would not transfer very much sound from the tape. 1mm is a large distance from a head gap. so no you cant lub a tape.

this article implies that it can be done, it just gives no info as to the process

http://www.imation.com/government/nm...agtape_S_H.pdf

taken from page 12

Over time, the level of lubricant in the tape decreases. Lubricants are partially
consumed every time the tape is played. This is all part of their job as lubricants —
they are consumed and worn down sacrificially to protect the tape. Some of the
lubricant will migrate from the tape to the guide pins and heads of the recorder each
time the tape is played.
Lubricant levels decrease over time even in unplayed, archived tape as a result of
evaporation and degradation. The lubricants used in some tapes are oily liquids that
are volatile and slowly evaporate away over time. Some lubricants are also subject
to degradation by hydrolysis and oxidation, just like the binder polymer, and will
lose their essential lubrication properties with time.
The information stored on severely degraded magnetic tapes can be recovered, in
specific instances, after relubrication of the tapes. By significantly reducing the
friction of the magnetic coating with the addition of lubricant, tapes can be made to
play back. Prior to relubrication, the tape may have seized in the tape transport as a
result of high friction, or the magnetic coating may have been readily torn off the
tape backing by a high speed tape head. Relubrication of tapes must be done
carefully by experienced individuals. If a tape is over-lubricated, the excess lubricant
on the surface of the tape will act as debris and increase the head-to-tape spacing,
causing signal losses and dropouts.

Well I never! would have thought:

* Lubricant loss:

The depletion of that substance or substances that allow the tape to move through its necessary path with a minimum of friction. Like sticky- shed, lubricant loss appears to be an inevitable part of the aging of modern magnetic tape, with the rate and severity of the loss being related to storage and use conditions. Lubricant loss will cause increased friction of the tape, resulting in increased headwear, contributing to sticky tape, sticky-shed, oxide loss, tape squeal, and head clog; the results can include mistracking. This can sometimes be temporarily corrected by judicious application of lubricants, such as a silicone solution or Krytox applied with a wicking or cotton ball applicator.

Krytox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Restoration Tips & Notes » Wet playing of reel tapes with Loss of Lubricant—A guest article by Marie O’Connell

this is interesting i found it in my searchings

Krytox huh
well i am trying to picture myself applying some strange chemical to these tapes by hand, and it seems like a pain in the butt.
still not sure what to do becasue as i said does not seem to respond to baking and leaves nasty white shed and brings the tape deck to a hault due to the friction so at the moment this tape appears to be unplayable.
it seems there may be no easy fix

I wonder how alcohol would react to the tape after. are these tapes to be thrown away right after?

well after we get a good playback for transfer and are hapy with the tracks the tapes are to be donated to a museum. so really i do almost anything to get them to playback without any mishaps of anykind.

i read an article on mold removal said to use alcohol to clean the mold off, so it may not harm the tape at all

I read that too and that's the image I get from what you're describing (maybe dusty, powdery residue).

Good luck on it (in the process of transferring some 20+ year olds as well here)

George

yes its not quite sticky like when tapes shed under other circumstances and its not brown like usual sticky shed, it big flakes that are whitish in color and appear to be kinda dry looking, yet somehow sticky enough to stop the tape deck this being the lack of lube part.

i know this is an old thread, but i'd rather revive it than post a new one:

I have loss of lubricant issues; 1/4 " tape (from 1980, generic stock that's usually reliable). It's causing severe squealing that's audible in the sound file. My Nagra is cleaned and in good shape, not the problem.

I don't want to use Marie O'Connell's isopropyl method without some data as to the long-term effect on the tapes, as this is an archival digitization project. Anybody used this method successfully? Or have any recommendations as to other lubricants?

My next step is going to be playback at a low temperature (i.e. me freezing my tuchus off in the vault.)

feedback?

Wish I had some good suggestion. Sounds pretty scary. Why don't you contact the manufacturer of the tape itself, if they are still in business or maybe give Mike a call at ATR? Good luck and let us know what you find out, OK?

Inglewood SoundBarn

It's all ball bearings these days.

day 2 of tape wrasslin'.

put everything in the vault overnight (55-60 degrees.) Cleaned the pinch roller and took one of the tape guides out of the path to reduce tension.
this helped, but not enough.

I found that if i put a makeshift guide (me, holding a smooth-barrelled socket wrench) between the record & playback heads, the change of the tape's angle was enough to stop the squealing. unfortunately, it also reduced the high end substantially, but i was able to get a listenable transfer.

I'm NOT stoked about the idea of holding a tool in the tape path for 30-45 minutes per tape, especially in a cold vault. I'm considering testing Richard Hess' theory that LOL syndrome is only sticky shed by another name, and baking me some tape.
The question nagging me though, is, if it is LOL (which i think likely, given that it's a non-backcoated tape that's been humidity-controlled for the last 20 years) won't baking make it worse?

again, any thoughts welcome.

p.s. The Sound Barn looks really sweet. Hope I get to see it in person sometime.

Give me a shout and come on over!


Inglewood SoundBarn

I can say that after baking and transferring approximately 150 tapes over the course of about 2 months, that I ran into one particular tape, that even after repeated baking still displayed signs of a lack of lubrication. I dunno, I finally just gave up on that one particular tape.
All the other tapes I baked turned out just dandy, some had to be baked twice, but in the end, minus the tape I gave up on and a couple other tapes that had un-repairable damage it all turned out well.
As for the tape that I suspected of LOL, well i never got around to attempting to relubricate it, it turned out to be a tape that was perhaps not so important, thus it went back into storage.

We use custom built cleaning machines to wipe clean the tapes backing and oxide sides, removing any contaminates that could re adhere to the oxide during the baking process.

If a tape shows any signs of LOL we place it in a mechanical re hydration chamber, after a period of time, we bake the tape. I know it sounds a bit counter intuitive but we have had great success with the process.

We just completed a 100+ tape archive and this really helped us get through it.

I would not advise using alcohol for tape re lubing or mold removal, since its general usage is to REMOVE oxide from objects like tape guides and heads.

Every tape is a different challenge but that’s what keeps it interesting.

Time Tech,

sadly, no custom built anything when you're working for the State of Tennessee. What process does your rehydration chamber use? Is it something I could reproduce?

current status: the other tapes in the series seem less problematic. i successfully cold played 4 of them with no manual interference. i'm going to go back to normal temperatures today and see what happens.

since i got a listenable (though not ideal) transfer of the worst tape. i may try to bake it and run it again.

A quick and cheap version of a hydration chamber can be built from a picnic cooler.

A large open cell sponge like the type they sell to wash cars with, a watertight enclosure to hold the sponge, and some distilled water. You can get fancy and add a hydrometer (available at cigar stores ) and a 12vdc 120 mm box fan (radio shack or computer parts store). Run the fan at 5-6 vdc to slow it down.

Open/remove the picnic cooler plug used to drain the melted ice. Place the sponge and its enclosure near the plug opening. Use 1/2" to 1" standoffs to mount the fan above the sponge and enclosure. Run the fan wires out the open plug hole.

All in it should only cost about $50.00 dollars to build.

If you have any questions please feel free to PM me.

Greetings from New Zealand. Did you ever try the isopropyl method I created in 1994? You do realise I've worked in Archives for 24 years and so the tapes I've worked on are archival?
Hope you gave it a shot, even with Q-sticks and a mask.
Merry Christmas,
Marie

OK so here in 2021 it's my turn to (again) transfer some 20-30 year old tapes to digital, I have done it before yet want to review and get some new input. And, I have always both cleaned and lubed the tape heads before every session or mix day, sometimes twice a day.

Here is what I know so far;
1-The tapes need to be dry to reduce oxide shedding. Oxide shedding seems to strip the highs off first. Which means that right when you are trying to save those "old' highs, the tape is coating the head, masking off the highs. DRY YOUR TAPES.
I have heard about and used ovens for the drying. that is scary. A fruit dryer is way (way way way) better. no chance of damage and literally made to take out moisture.
2- Set up your capture sessions using scrap old tape for rough levels, routing etc. because once you have a dry tape you want to capture it as soon as you can before losing any more oxide. Don't worry about trimming the start and finish etc just capture it. At least do a safety capture before fooling around with details. Hope this is useful.

Does anyone have a current source for tape lube?

I do a lot of tape transfers (just did 120 R to R tapes) and have NEVER used any "tape lube". We have a specially designed tape baking oven that has very precise temperature controls and so far no problems with "sticky tape shed".

Suggest keeping your heads and tape path clean for best results.

I am using an Otari MTR-10 Mkll for my transfers.

What will be your transfer machine? Best of luck!

You need to first identify the tapes you are dealing with. Not all tapes were hygroscopic. Some should never be baked or dried. Others must be before attempting a play. What tape types are they? Specifically what brand and type number. Are they back coated? Have you done the standard test to determine whether the winds are sticking to one another?

Baking is just a convenient term to describe heating tapes to drive out moisture to make them temporarily playable. The temperature is the important thing, not whether it's in an oven or food dehydrator.

Again the tapes may or may not need moisture removal.

I think it's important to note here there are two common issues with tape playback: Binder Hydrolysis (Sticky Shed Syndrome) & Soft Binder Syndrome (Loss of Lubricant). These are two very different things and need to be treated differently.

Carriers that do not respond to incubation are likely suffering from Soft binder syndrome (Scotch/3M 175 & 201 were commonly used and both suffer from SBS). Proper playback typically consists of 3 methods: Wet playback (using continually applied distilled water), Cold playback (although this does not mean freezing the tapes, which can damage them), and lubricating them with D5 siloxane (decamethylcyclopentasiloxane). Even with these methods, I've still had tapes that simply don't respond to any methods and have been deemed unplayable (particularly with 3M 175, which is a non-backed polyester). Out of hundreds of these tapes that I've digitized, there's been about a dozen that are a complete loss...and this is with months of work and experimentation!

Richard Hess did a great presentation at the Library of Congress NAVCC in 2018 describing some science behind the processes. His website has some great resources regarding Soft Binder Syndrome that may help as well:

https://richardhess.com/notes/format...grading-tapes/

His site contains a trove of useful information...I use it a lot.

I have the original machine from the sessions, which was a tiny but surprising Fostex Model 80. Great performances worth trying to transfer and do something with. Going from that through a Da& Ramasa digital through Lynx into DAW. Not using my vintage pres

Thank you

Scotch 227 and Ampex 457

Scotch 201 is a completely different beast. In the 25 years I've dealt with it, I have yet to see any solution work on this particular tape.

The layers on a Scotch 201 reel stick to each other, getting worse as you move further towards the center of the reel. The adhesion can be so severe, the oxide is literally ripped off the base of the tape. You can see clear through it in this case. Winding it slower than your life is the best method of handling this. Sometimes they wind completely fine. But any damage is real and permanent. It is acetate so there is no baking it away, and cold playing MAY work at first, but it's not consistent. The polyester 202 sometimes exhibits this behavior as well, but less often.