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Vintage Tape (Audio), Cassette, Wire and Magnetic Disc Recorders and Players Open-reel tape recorders, cassette recorders, 8-track players etc.

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Old 26th Jan 2017, 9:57 pm   #1
Grubhead
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Default Sticky Cassette Tapes

I decided to post this as I have encountered quite a few Cassette tapes that end up dead ducks.

The problem seems to be similar to the Reel To Reel tape thing where the tape becomes useless.
In this case no matter what player the tape is put in, the tape will simply grind to halt and not move, resulting in the auto stop activating.

It doesn't seem to be a pressure pad issue. The tape might play for a bit, but then slows down and squeaks and stops.

It can happen on many tapes. But I have found that a lot of EMI super tapes suffer a lot. But I have encountered commercial cassettes with the problem.

I did hear it was connected to the stopping of Whale oil as a tape lubricant. But that could just be a story.
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Old 26th Jan 2017, 10:32 pm   #2
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

I haven't found any cassette tapes with sticky shed, but some do jam or spool badly, I think because of poor cassette shells or liners. Some liners are little more than greaseproof paper.

You should be able to use the tape if you transfer it to a different shell. I've never found any jamming problems with Japanese TDK or Maxell tapes, and old TDK Ds are a good source of rescue shells.

As far as I know, whale oil (sperm oil) was never used as a cassette tape lubricant, and was being phased out when cassettes were introduced in the 60s.
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Old 27th Jan 2017, 9:30 am   #3
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

As above I have hundreds of cassettes of all ages and good makes remain fine after 40 years. The only problems are with cheap makes where recordings fade in the high frequencies or mechanical sticking but no sticky tape (yet! )
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Old 27th Jan 2017, 10:40 am   #4
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

I have quite a few pre-recorded cassettes that are suffering from sticky shed. They start off OK, but as the speed of the supply reel increases, the squealing starts and they grind to a halt. Being pre-recorded, the shells are glued together, so no hope of getting them apart cleanly. I suppose baking with the tape left in the shells would be an option, if the contents are valuable enough.

I don't have any EMI blanks, but as Paul says, TDK and Maxell seem to go on ad infinitum. Worth paying that little bit extra.
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Old 27th Jan 2017, 12:11 pm   #5
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

AFAIR, 8 track cartridges did need to use use lubricant, but cassettes did not. A Philips advert of the early 1970's mentioned that an 8 track cartridge had a design life of 500 plays, whereas a cassette 's design life was 1500 plays.

I did have problems with a batch of circa 1971 Phiips C120's that for some reason did not spool evenly, resulting in the take-up core jamming before the tape had finished. I ended up copying them onto new cassettes: transferring tapes to different cases did not help. They were welded, but carefully cutting around the join with a scalpel got them apart, and for transcription (using a Philips EL3302) I left the top half of the shell off, which avoided jamming.

My experience has also been that only commercially-recorded cassettes suffer from oxide shed. My cassette of "The Shadows Greatest Hits" is the worst: oxide build up after playing only half a side resulted in dramatic loss of treble and the need for the meths and Q-tip to clean away the crud. Fortunately I was able to pick up a pristine copy on vinyl in a charity shop, so don't need it any more. Other than the batch mentioned earlier, no problem with early 1970's Philips, Maxell, BASF and TDK cassettes, which still play perfectly with no trace of print-though, even on the C120s that the vast majority of my stuff is recorded on.
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Old 27th Jan 2017, 1:53 pm   #6
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

Quote:
Originally Posted by emeritus View Post
My cassette of "The Shadows Greatest Hits" is the worst:
The Shadows were on EMI so it ties in with the idea that EMI cassettes can give problems. I have some EMI X1000 tapes in my collection from the late 70's so maybe I'll see if they still play and try baking on or two if they don't.
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Old 27th Jan 2017, 2:32 pm   #7
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

This is common. Apart from the EMI ones, I have found it with a lot of US tapes made by Warners and MCA from circa 1977-1980. The ones I've seen are not technically sticky-shedders as they didn't leave the usual black mess as in reel to reel. But the surface had presumably hydrolised, and the increased friction means they wouldn't run throuh a machine properly.

As has been said, the afflicted ones tend to be mass produced commercial tapes, so finding a clean source of the material (online, or on CD or LP in a record shop) is easy these days. Not worth messing with such tapes. I usually save the pressure pads and dump the tape.
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Old 27th Jan 2017, 3:49 pm   #8
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

I used cheap tapes for recording 'phone conversations, so they frequently stopped and started.
I discovered that they spooled unevenly, the wound tape got wider on the reel than the space between the rubbing cheeks in the cassette presumably because they became slack wound when stopped, the tape dropped down, and when started again wound up the slack. If you can follow that!
I used to rap them on the desk top, flat side down, a few times and the ran freely afterwards for a while.
Winding them end to end seemed to prevent this happening too.
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Old 27th Jan 2017, 4:07 pm   #9
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

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Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
As far as I know, whale oil (sperm oil) was never used as a cassette tape lubricant, and was being phased out when cassettes were introduced in the 60s.
Yes that's the problem, they DID NOT use the Whale Oil, instead used man made oil, which caused the sticky problem. If they had used Whale it might have been OK. Of course Mr Spock would have something to say about that
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Old 27th Jan 2017, 5:00 pm   #10
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boater Sam View Post
I used cheap tapes for recording 'phone conversations, so they frequently stopped and started.
I discovered that they spooled unevenly, the wound tape got wider on the reel than the space between the rubbing cheeks in the cassette presumably because they became slack wound when stopped, the tape dropped down, and when started again wound up the slack. If you can follow that!
I used to rap them on the desk top, flat side down, a few times and the ran freely afterwards for a while.
Not a good idea as you can damage the shell, especially the inner retaining ring around the reels that stop them movign more than a few mm side to side. Seen this a few times. Winding end to end is best, if it won't run, then gently squeeze the shell together between thumb and forefinger around the tape pack.
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Old 27th Jan 2017, 6:20 pm   #11
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boater Sam View Post
I used cheap tapes for recording 'phone conversations, so they frequently stopped and started.
I discovered that they spooled unevenly, the wound tape got wider on the reel than the space between the rubbing cheeks in the cassette presumably because they became slack wound when stopped, the tape dropped down, and when started again wound up the slack. If you can follow that!
I used to rap them on the desk top, flat side down, a few times and the ran freely afterwards for a while.
Winding them end to end seemed to prevent this happening too.
In times-past I worked on hydrological survey gear that recorded very-low-rate digital data by buffering it in low-power RAM [a full 4096 Bytes!] before periodically dumping it to cassette-tape using the "Kansas City" format - which implied a lot of stop-start service.

When it came to playing-back the tapes after they'd been recovered from the outstations, it was quite common for issues to arise. Apart from the stop/start thing these recorders sat outdoors for weeks in little boxes beside streams/rivers/boreholes so were exposed to complex fluctuations of temperature and humidity.

I found that giving the cassettes a really good slap against my thigh would 'settle' the tape on its spools and let us recover the data.
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Old 27th Jan 2017, 7:52 pm   #12
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

I have found quite a number of my pre recorded cassettes are now suffering from this problem. They run slow and often eventually stop completely. They leave a waxy white deposit on the Playback head too. The worst affected seem to date from the mid 80s.
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Old 27th Jan 2017, 8:48 pm   #13
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

I always found the sealed shells could be broken apart fairly easily without damage to the tape inside. I suppose you could always leave it in the shell, splice it at the leader and then wind it into another shell. I'm sure I did this at one point, I probably spent hours winding it in with a biro, but you could probably make something up to do the job. After doing this winding it end to end a few times should get it running smoothly, unless it is sticky.
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Old 27th Jan 2017, 10:47 pm   #14
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesperrett View Post
The Shadows were on EMI so it ties in with the idea that EMI cassettes can give problems. I have some EMI X1000 tapes in my collection from the late 70's so maybe I'll see if they still play and try baking on or two if they don't.
I recall that EMI had real problems with tape formulation around that time. I don't think they had the R&D resources to keep pace with the continental manufacturers.

I specifically remember an anecdotal incident at Abbey Road Studios in 1977 (using, at that time, Emitape) when Cliff Richard spotted that their new Necam automated moving desk faders had ceased to move. It turned out to be errors in the replay of the SMPTE synchronising code due to tape dropouts. Abbey Road then changed from Emitape to Ampex 456 which performed without problems.

That Ampex tape was of course later going to give some horrendous sticky shed problems, but at the time it overcame an Emitape dropout problem.

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Old 27th Jan 2017, 11:01 pm   #15
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

I have piles of cassettes that I've not tried for years, not particularly well stored. I must give some a try and see. For general recordings I used to use Maxell or TDK "D". Anything I wanted to keep I used to use TDK "AD". They were more expensive, seemed better quality, and the HF response always seemed better. It will be interesting to see if they have held up well after 25+ years.

I do have a couple of EMI cassettes so I'm not expecting great things after reading this.
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Old 28th Jan 2017, 1:14 am   #16
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

I think the Maxell and TDK tapes will be fine. I have tapes from TDK that are 39 years old and still play fine. Both of those brands were clearly built to last. I have only encountered sticky tapes from EMI and some commercial ones. Never a TDK or Maxell. TDK tapes were my mainstay of my collection and was recording on those tapes from the top 40 ever Sunday from 1978 to the 90's. That's a lot of tapes! They all still play. So that gives you an idea how reliable TDK tapes are.
I think if you have any EMI tapes and they are playing now, I would copy the contents off ASAP.
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Old 28th Jan 2017, 3:50 pm   #17
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

Further to post no. 12

A few years ago I started going through my collection of pre-recorded cassettes and like michamoo found that some were leaving a white sticky deposit on the head. The deposit could be removed from the head by the 'cotton bud and Iso-Propyl Alcohol' technique used on heads used with 'usual' oxide shedding tapes.
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Old 29th Jan 2017, 8:22 pm   #18
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

Strangely enough, the late 70s-early 80s EMI pre-recorded tapes seem to give problems but their c60 and c90 blanks all seem fine. I've attached a few pictures from t'internet of the ones I have used that are OK.
Note that Boots used these rebadged for a while. The older ones like EMISTAR SOUNDHOG, etc. may shed a little oxide, but certainly aren't sticky.

I think the prerecorded ones may have used different (cheaper) stock. The ones I have that give problems are dark, chrome -looking FE tape that look nothing like their commercial blanks. See pic (beatles) for the type of cassette I'm talking about.
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Old 29th Jan 2017, 9:25 pm   #19
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

When I started to go through all the tapes I have here to see what was on them and archive anything important, I found that the few BASF ones I had shedded badly - not sticky shed gumming everything up like 456, but just losing lots of oxide - so I have left them as a "one day" project.

I also found that some Teac HDX chrome tapes seemed to be developing a white mould, similar to what I've seen on some late 90s SKC VHS tapes, but they had nothing important on them.

The most reliable ones turned out to be Direct Imports NZ custom loads - the shells seem to be pretty reasonable, and for quite a while they used TDK pancakes to load them (they were also the Teac agents, so you had the strange situation where their "Teac SDR" branded tapes had "Tape supplied by TDK" on the packaging).
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Old 30th Jan 2017, 12:02 am   #20
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Default Re: Sticky Cassette Tapes

I also have had no problems with blank Emitapes, only the pre-recorded ones.
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