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Vintage Television and Video Vintage television and video equipment, programmes, VCRs etc.

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Old 22nd Jul 2020, 7:26 pm   #1
RobustReviews
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Default Consequences of sticky/Mouldy VHS tapes

Hello all,

Strange question but I've acquired a very low hour and cosmetically near-perfect Panasonic AG-7350 duplication/studio (S)VHS player.

I own an equipment hire company and I'm considering adding her to the hire inventory (we work solely in the digital domain for prosumer/pro AV equipment, but I'm a VHS fetishist) for people to possibly hire for their own transfers, on the proviso that if I don't do the transfer, it's not my problem, I'm just hiring a deck, TBC and capture device as the sole service.

Now, having had a few general enquiries I think it may be viable to put it out for hire (costs me nothing but about fifteen minutes to add it to the inventory, I'm not planning to retire on this) but I'm slightly suspicious what would happen if somebody plays a nasty 'sticky' tape through it.

Apart from a good cleaning can the heads be totally gummed beyond repair, or can other catastrophic damage occur to the machine playing sticky or mouldy tapes?

I can get a disclaimer written through our legal service (forfeiture of deposit etc) for annoying cleaning but if there's a risk the deck could be spannered on playing back nasty tapes that does make be reconsider.

Out there to you experts! Put aside the viability for business, I'm only asking really about potential damage to the machine from mouldy tapes.


Thanks, as always,
RR
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Old 22nd Jul 2020, 7:41 pm   #2
Vintage Engr
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Default Re: Consequences of sticky/Mouldy VHS tapes

I used to work on these machines, & they are pretty robust.

However, as you say, a really gooey tape could well destroy the head tips. This wasn't a problem when I was hiring/repairing kit, but you have to remember this is now a vintage device! Can't just pop over to Bracknell for some spares any more.

Personally, I'd offer a service, with you in control, rather than Joe public running dodgy tapes through it. The question is, how many spare upper drums are you going to find these days?
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Old 22nd Jul 2020, 7:51 pm   #3
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Default Re: Consequences of sticky/Mouldy VHS tapes

Mouldy tapes are actually quite rare in my experience.

The usual failing tape binder sticky shed doesn't seem to occur with VHS tapes, presumably because they were never made with the notorious DuPont binder that plagues so many Ampex audio tapes.

The problem you will have is that mouldy tapes contaminate the mechanism. It's very difficult to decontaminate everything. Tape mould is a type of fungus.
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Old 22nd Jul 2020, 8:00 pm   #4
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Default Re: Consequences of sticky/Mouldy VHS tapes

Cheers both!

It's certainly something to think about, and as said upper drums aren't available on simple phonecall any more!

The machine is great in function, only slight hiccup is that is gets confused if you try and play backwards slowly and brings up an E-6 error after about 3 seconds (fine at anything except creeping backwards) which I think might be a tension error but I think trying to fix or adjust such a non-issue might just create more problems in the long run.

Apart from that, it's Golden.
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Old 22nd Jul 2020, 8:02 pm   #5
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Default Re: Consequences of sticky/Mouldy VHS tapes

Quote:
Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
Mouldy tapes are actually quite rare in my experience.
Though there were several among a batch of Doctor Who tapes I acquired a few years ago - such that I gave up trying to play them as the playback became noisier and noisier. Eventually, the picture disappeared completely behind the "snow".
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Old 23rd Jul 2020, 10:03 am   #6
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Default Re: Consequences of sticky/Mouldy VHS tapes

Possibly mode switch causing the error? Pretty sure this deck has one.
Unlike Paul I've come across very many mouldy VHS tapes - even brand new sealed ones - and it doesn't seem to matter how they've been stored. I keep a couple by the shop counter as a warning example to show customers who are rediscovering their collection or archiving.
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Old 23rd Jul 2020, 11:12 am   #7
Graham G3ZVT
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Default Re: Consequences of sticky/Mouldy VHS tapes

Look, (he said assertively),
Back in the day when we rented domestic VHS machines out by the thousand, it wasn't so much sticky-shed that we were concerned about, it was the jam butties that little Johnny posted into the machine. In the main we got them working in the customers house, with liberal amounts of IPA and not much else.

Hopefully you will be giving the tape path regular cleaning anyway.

Your prosumer customers are likely to be much more careful than L.J, and by the time an accident does occur, the machine will likely have paid for itself many times over, even if you can't get a legal/insurance remedy.

Go for it I say.
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Old 23rd Jul 2020, 11:21 am   #8
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Default Re: Consequences of sticky/Mouldy VHS tapes

As I mentioned in #3, the biggest risk is that somebody will play a mouldy tape in the machine, which will spread spores everywhere. Any clean tape played subsequently is likely to pick up spores and become mouldy in turn after a while. This may not matter if the tapes are being digitised and don't need to be played again, but it may be disastrous if they are part of a permanent archive.

It's very, very difficult to decontaminate the mechanism with standard cleaning techniques.
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Old 23rd Jul 2020, 10:40 pm   #9
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Default Re: Consequences of sticky/Mouldy VHS tapes

There were some machines for cleaning tapes, I'm not sure how well they would work to clean a mouldy tape though.
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Old 23rd Jul 2020, 11:20 pm   #10
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Default Re: Consequences of sticky/Mouldy VHS tapes

Hi.

Mould is a big worry with video cassettes. I have quite a few VHS cassettes dry stored which seem to be free of mould. A recent sort out in the garage revealed about five badly affected tapes showing a white colour mould. This no doubt being worsened by high humidity.
The trouble with mouldy tapes is the likelyhood of contaminating any machine they're inserted in. As has been pointed out, it's difficult to be sure that cleaning will remove all traces. I guess that when we pick up cheap VCRs and audio tape decks from car boot sales etc then we don't really know if they are contaminated with mould. After a good physical clean of the deck, I wonder if the deck could be exposed to UV light to kill any remaining spores. Strong sunlight might be a good alternative?

I've heard horror stories about some moulds on video tapes being deadly which has kind of put me off attempting to clean or save any tapes that are showing mould.

Regards,
Symon
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Old 25th Jul 2020, 4:12 pm   #11
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Default Re: Consequences of sticky/Mouldy VHS tapes

I also have an AG 7350. From memory it has an hour meter which might be handy to check if the customer has really played the number of tapes that they claim! But with the rare exception I don't hire out my audio and video players.
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