Re: arsclist Reels and boxes

[Art Shifrin <goldens2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Everyone,

I strongly recommend that plastic reels and storing the tape as flangeless
pancakes be avoided because:

1.  over long term storage, if there are sufficient environmental fluctuations,
the tape pack can loosen from alternate expansions and contractions.  If wound
without flanges, then the pancakes can telescope out.  This grossly and
needlessly jeopardizes the tape and its contents.

2.   plastics often can warp over time.  The flanges of 10" reels are
necessarily less supported at their rims than 7" ones.  I've encountered such
reels that were so warped that the flanges had to be broken off so that the
tape woul;d not abrade against them.
Breaking off the flanges constituted an avoidable jeopardy.

3. Remember that aluminum flanges are easily attached and detached with
screws.  If "non precision" (meaning, conventional) reels were used &  flange
would have to be occassionally adjusted or replaced (i.e. from being dropped),
then doing so would be easy and relatively risk free.

4.  I recently transferred some 30 ips 1/4" tapes of eight heavily spliced
acetate base reels comprising a performance piece by John Cage.  They evidently
had not been run since they were made in 1950.  Thankfully, they were on
aluminum reels.  I simply rewound them under capstan control, repaired those
splices that opened, determined the playback azimuth (no tones on any of them)
and migrated right to digital.

About boxes:

Do we know that "off gassing" from the plastic boxes doesn't affect the tape?
Do we know that tapes should or should not perhaps be exposed to gradually
exchanged air?
I have reels of 3M 111 and Maxell UD 50 that I acquired or purchased (meaning,
some on which I recorded material since the late 60's, and some on which
recordings were made way before that) that have been stored in mundane
manufacturers' boxes since then and they still play perfectly: no shedding, no
squeal.  The boxes certainly would have been better off being acid free so that
they would not have deteriorated.  But, being kept in non-scientfically heated
and cooled living environments, they are still robust. Even samples I have of
PVC tape made by IG Farben prior to 1944 still run beautifully.  Tape can be a
great long term medium if it's made and stored properly.  Given the problems
with binder failure, evidently the storage issue is less grave than how the
stuff was manufactured (meaning, methods and materials used).

By the way, I bought a DeLonghi "Air Stream" turbo convection oven: a stylish,
small and relatively inexpensive l (less than $200 when I bought it about two
years ago) unit that I use both for baking tape and the old toy trains that I
strip and refinish.  In the dehydrate mode, the temperature holds to a steady
125 F.  It'll accommodate perhaps 6 10" tapes, with an empty core placed
between each adjacent pair of reels to assure air flow amongst them.  I assume
that a larger, similarly designed model would accommodate larger diameter reels
but haven't investigated this because the need has not arrived.

Best Regards,
Art "Shiffy" Shifrin