Re: [ARSCLIST] Transporting 10 inch pancakes

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Parker:

Back when I had regular contact with a large record company's reissue/archive people, they told me 
that most of the tapes in their library were on hubs because they felt reels posed a risk to the 
tape. I never understood exactly what risk they envisioned with aluminum reels, but that was their 
practice. In my own practice, I'm not a big believer in hubs. I have plenty of reels and anything 
important, valuable or fragile is on a metal reel. What I have done over time is get rid of metal, 
slotted hubs, simply unscrewing the flanges and replacing with modern fiberglass unslotted hubs.

Jerry, if your tapes are old non-backcoat, or sloppily wound backcoat, Parker brings up a really key 
point. Transit can rattle even a well-boxed hub just enough to make the tape pack impossible to get 
out of the box and onto a tape machine without disaster. If it were me, I would buy flanges and 
screws/sex nuts before shipping.

One more thing. I'm not sure I'd keep anything important long-term on plastic NAB reels. Question 
is, if you have fragile non-backcoat tape and only a plastic reel available, do you store it on the 
plastic reel?

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Parker Dinkins" <parker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 6:27 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Transporting 10 inch pancakes


> on 2/6/07 3:59 PM US/Central, Jerry McBride at jerry.mcbride@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> wrote:
>
> > Does anyone have experience with moving a collection of quarter-inch
> > tapes, as ten-inch pancakes in their original boxes? It seems logical to
> > assume that it would be safer to ship or move tape on reels. How great
> > is the danger that the pancake will come unwound under normal shipping
> > and moving conditions if stored on hubs in the original boxes?
>
>
>
> AES Standard for audio preservation and restoration- Magnetic tape - Care
> and handling practices for extended usage (AES49-2005):
>
>
> 4.5.5 Flangeless hubs
>
> Sometimes magnetic tape is stored on flangeless hubs. When this practice is
> used, the following recommendations shall be observed:
>
> a) Only backcoated tape designed for storage on a flangeless hub shall be
> stored in this manner. Non-backcoated tape will not wind properly and is at
> high risk of falling off the tape pack.
>
> <snip>
>
>
> In the past week I've received and repaired two broken tape packs which were
> stored on flangeless hubs.
>
> One of these was backcoated tape which didn't travel via common carrier at
> all. The other was non-backcoated and packed tightly with a styrofoam tape
> spacer.
>
> --
> Parker Dinkins
> MasterDigital Corporation
> Audio Restoration + CD Mastering
> http://masterdigital.com