Some tapes are back coated, have a dull black or dark gray side that should
face outwards, and the relatively shiny side, which may be brown, should
face in and contains the recorded information. Splicing tape should be
placed on the duller outside coating, as you have described. This would be
typical of many tapes from the 1970s and on. You did not indicate the
vintage of your tapes.
Of course, if your tapes are NOT back coated, they are wrong. You will have
to play some to see which side contains magnetic information, but I'm
willing to bet that they are back coated tapes. For so many to be stored
wrong would have required a lot of effort on someone's part to get things so
screwed up.
The bad news is that if they are as I suspect, you have a worse problem.
Many tapes from the time period described, the back coated tapes, exhibit a
problem called sticky shed syndrome. They shed, and they get sticky as they
experience chemical breakdown of the binder. That is ANOTHER HUGE problem.
The tapes should be baked in an oven - seriously - and transferred to
another more stable medium.
Joe Salerno
Video Works! Is it working for you?
PO Box 273405 - Houston TX 77277-3405
http://joe.salerno.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Melanie Brown" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2005 2:25 PM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] Magnetic Tape - questions...
I work in an archive of mixed materials - paper collections and audio/visual
collections. I am sorting through reel-to-reel 1/4" audio tape, and I am
seeing things that are making me doubt my prior standards...
In the classroom and in many "best-practices" that I have read, reels are
recommended to be stored tails-out, oxide facing in. When splicing repairs
or attaching heads/tails, the splicing tape is to be place on the backing of
the tape - the shiny side.
In my travels through the archive, I am noticing many reels that are wound
shiny-side IN, and many many instances of splicing tape applied to the dull,
recorded side.
Are my standards too high? Am I remembering my classroom notes backwards?
Any thoughts would be appreciated, to help me make "heads or tails" of this.
Thank you!
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