[ARSCLIST] pinning of oxide to plastic leader - best practice

[Eric Jacobs <EricJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've encountered a fair number of tapes where the oxide
on the innermost magnetic tape wrap has stuck to the 
plastic leader and is partially stripped off, remaining
adhered to the leader.

Unfortunately, if these tapes are prepared for broadcast,
there is often audio on the very head of the tape, and so 
some of that audio is compromised as the oxide is stripped 
off.

Here are the steps I am currently taking:

1.  If a plastic leader is present at the hub, I manually
    unwind the last wrap of magnetic tape VERY slowly 
    from the leader.  This seems to leave less oxide stuck
    to the plastic leader.

2.  If there was audio on the pinned oxide, I flip the tape, 
    and transfer the segment of leader with oxide on it.  
    This segment of audio could conceivably be patched 
    (summed?) back into the original audio.  I've not tried 
    to do this, but felt that it was important to capture 
    and archive this bit of stripped audio for any future 
    restoration work.

3.  Transfer the tape as usual, and make appropriate notes 
    in the metadata about the additional transfer of the 
    pinned oxide.

There are clearly some dicey bits above.  So here are the
questions I would like to put to the tape archive community:

A.  Do you replace the plastic leader with paper to prevent
    further oxide from getting pinned to the leader and
    stripped?

B.  If you do replace with paper leader, what do you do 
    with the plastic leader that has the oxide pinned to 
    it?

This is further complicated by paper leader becoming a rare
commodity.  The latest plastic leader has no ink on it, 
which is a step in the right direction.  I've seen plenty 
of old Scotch leader where the ink has gotten sticky and the
oxide adheres to the ink and is stripped off.

It is unclear if oxide will get pinned to the current brands
of plastic leader.  Certainly the current plastic leader has
a flat finish rather than glossy, which may (or may not) help
prevent pinning.

In any case, if you have paper leader or ink-free plastic
leader, replacing the old smooth plastic leader seems prudent.

As for what to do with the old plastic leader with oxide 
adhered to it, there's no nice easy way to store it 
separately without risking damage to the leader, or seeing
it get lost or confused with other material.  So I've 
thought about: (a) splicing the leader with stripped oxide
to the leader that is on the outer tape wrap (usually the
tail if tail out), and (b) making notes in pencil about the 
pinned oxide and noting direction and tracks, and (c) making
sure there is enough leader so that the oxide pinned to the
leader can be played.

What are others doing?

Eric Jacobs

The Audio Archive, Inc.
tel: 408.221.2128
fax: 408.549.9867
mailto:EricJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx