Turtlerock Forum

I have a space echo in need of new/reconditioned heads. (30 years of endless tape, I'm surprised they are still even there!)
Has anyone been down this raod?
I can't find any info so I'm guessing that no one sells them.
How viable is head lathing/reconditioning?
Same as an old 1/4" I guess but I've never been there either.
Advice?

Cheers.

perefectly do- able if there is enough "meat" in the heads and your gentle enough

i am find out the hard way that i am not gentle enough to lap heads !

try rens guitar shop in the city ( global vintage i think) i am sure they told me the other day they had a bunch of "broken" space echoes out the back ,so they may have a plan or a contact to fix them or may sell you one with a problem other then the heads

i am sure there is a tech on this board that would lap them if the heads are worth it - anybody want to put thier hand up

M y guess is that they were a mass produced tape head and if you look on the head the manufacturers name would point you in the right direction to raid some heads from a simmilar era tape recorder of the same name.
Just a long shot but worth a try

I'd prefer not to buy another one because even "as is" space echo's are worth too much. (Although the cost of reconditioing 5 heads is possibly as much? I don't know)
Your idea Chris is rather cunning, definitely appealing to my tight-fisted hard-road-to-save-a-dollar mentality.
I'll look into it.
thanks

don't do the head re lap yourself unless you are positive you can do it

there is less margin for error the smaller the head so 1/4 " is not easy

maybe practice on some worthless tape machines first

if in doubt and you are in melb

serge at audio does good relaps
or simon tregear is constantly repairing these space echos so hes a good bet too

[quote="rick"]perefectly do- able if there is enough "meat" in the heads and your gentle enough

i found d out the hard way that i am not gentle enough to lap heads !

try rens guitar shop in the city ( global vintage i think) i am sure they told me the other day they had a bunch of "broken" space echoes out the back ,so they may have a plan or a contact to fix them or may sell you one with a problem other then the heads

i am sure there is a tech on this board that would lap them if the heads are worth it - anybody want to put thier hand up[/quote]

I just had an amp done recently by Simon Tregear, and he's got a few other things of mine on the shelf. He had ten space echo's there as well in the ever growing queue. He is really busy however and I don't think I could burden him any more with another Space Echo.
I wouldn't ever contemplate lapping them myself.
So who is this Serge chap?