Turtlerock Forum

Hey all, I have these old dictaphone recordings my mum sent back to Oz from the US in the early 60's. They are shedding a bit, I tried one tape and about half way through it started slooowwing down from sticky oxide. Didn't take it further cause I didn't want to wreck it. Is there any way I could bake it a little to stabilize it enough to transfer? Like in my home oven or anything. If it's a trade secret you could pm me? I can't monitor it real time and drop in because it's at 7.5 ips and my Revox only goes to 15. Mum's not with us anymore so I was hoping to tranfer them over to CD for my bro and sis.
THanks for any advice.
Cheers.

hey andy... plenty of resources out there that will tell you about temperatures etc.... but i would just remind you to make sure you only use an electric oven, as gas produces a certain amount of moisture, which is of course counter productive. in other words, you need dry heat.

i've actually had this conversation before, in regard to baking cassettes (as opposed to reels). my concern would be that the cassette mechanism is of course plastic, and has several parts, all different types of plastic.... i wonder if it would be necessary to actually remove the tape from the shell to prevent them melting or deforming? fiddly at best, especially if we're talking microcassettes (?)

like many people, i have a box of about 300-400 cassettes... some of them have been sticky since the early 80s and would be beyond saving now. but i would be interested to hear if anyone else has any experience with cassette baking?

Hey Wez, how's things.. I know your new avatar is some sort of photo collage, but everytime i look at it I see Optimus Prime.
Done more searching, lot of people say food hydrator. Apparently it's tres chich with all the national archive guys in the UK. I'm curious about the plastic melting too. These are on little plastic reels (3"?) so I wonder if I'd have to wind them off to something metal or if the plastic would be ok at the lower templs suggested for 1/4" tape.

China,

There's a specific sticky shed help thread here........ http://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=228067 ............you may find additional ideas there.

I seem to recall that it was said that a kitchen oven isn't ideal. The US guys seem to have easier access to dehydrators however there's usually some on local eBay. I have two 1" MRL "alignment" tapes that are sticky, fortunately I have a laboratory grade oven at work which I'll make use of when needed.

I have a food dehydrator that takes 10" spools perfectly and generally have had good results with this

Also a while back I had large industrial egg incubator with a very accurate temperature control. This was the best as it could be run at a controlled temp for long periods and take an average studios entire tape stock in one hit. I'd add a bag of moisture absorbing beads to this setup.

But the cost of a food dehydrator isn't too bad if you have recordings that are important to recover

Chinagraf wrote:Hey all, I have these old dictaphone recordings my mum sent back to Oz from the US in the early 60's. They are shedding a bit, I tried one tape and about half way through it started slooowwing down from sticky oxide. Didn't take it further cause I didn't want to wreck it. Is there any way I could bake it a little to stabilize it enough to transfer? Like in my home oven or anything. If it's a trade secret you could pm me? I can't monitor it real time and drop in because it's at 7.5 ips and my Revox only goes to 15. Mum's not with us anymore so I was hoping to tranfer them over to CD for my bro and sis.
THanks for any advice.
Cheers.

Dictaphone cassettes at 7.5ips? No they must be reels, likely 3" (the "facebook" for travellers of the time, good for air mail) in which you'd have to be really gentle with tape tension, or gently spool them off onto 5" or 7" reels first, and preferably use a machine with roller-only guides. Not all tape types are ripe for baking (edit: eg, acetate), and with a good playback machine you may get away without needing baking.
(pm'd you, Andy)

Chinagraf wrote:Hey Wez, how's things.. I know your new avatar is some sort of photo collage, but everytime i look at it I see Optimus Prime.

i'm so hopelessly uncool that i had to look that up! wrong type of transformer ;-)

actually it's the cover of the new Tobias Cummings CD that I am shamelessly flogging. it is his musical tour de force and my production magnum opus.

ok
no promises guarantees or warranty
we use a laboratory oven at turtlerock and have for many years

and i would not do it this way on a a paid job

but .... well i have done this so many times before we got the lab oven all i can tell you to give it a try at your own calculated risk


first get a little digital thermometer with a remote stick it in your home oven and see if you can get your oven to sit it at a stable 50 degrees c , no higher !
ie very low heat so low it will get rid of the moisture but not melt the plastic do this BEFORE you try a real bake

check it every hour or so for about 5-6 hours if it stays at that low heat for that long your okay you can use your oven - if it gets hotter , not so good
if it keeps creeping up to over 60 degrees C
forget it


if its stable all good - some ovens are some ovens are not - you mothers probably WILL be stable

stick your tapes in early on a sat morning and make sure they DO NOT TOUCH THE METAL AT ALL in fact stick a wooden chopping board or something on the shelf and monitor the temp about every 1/2 hour for the first 4 hours then every hour after that
turn the oven off at dinner time but DO NOT OPEN IT - this is very important

leave it to cool down until sunday morning

viola baked tape for non professional uses
the trouble you will get into if any - is if you have it too hot 60- 70-80 degrees C you will warp the plastics involved !

we actually bake at 48 degrees c for two days in our lab oven sometimes if needed we do it twice ( 4 days )


but the trick to remember is not to take them out of the oven when it is hot - let them cool down slowly ....

best of luck , and if it doesnt work and you end up melting them well sorry about that !
but you were not careful enough :(

BTW you can put them in my oven ( $100 per bake ) when we are open at the new place if you can wait

ditto for Rick's detailed explaination.

This was the joy of the incubator oven I once had. It would sit within 0.5deg for weeks. I used to set it at 46deg and run it for a weekend ( because it was so stable, I could load it with tapes on a friday night and come back monday morning knowing that it would be on the set temperature all weekend ). Then turn it off and let cool down, usually over a day.

Occasionally some tapes would need this process repeated.

Thanks for the replies Rick an Rob. This has gone on the backburner till end of financial year is over, but I will be doing it. I may have a line on a food hydrator too so I'm sure either way it will be a new experience.
THanks again.