DCAudioDIY.com

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Walt

I have done a number of restorations of various reel-to-reel machines, and am also on the ampex listserv. IIRC, almost everyone one of these top professional machine operators (and I mean top pros) use IPA for cleaning heads and most pinch rollers. If your rollers have gotten hard, you can send them to Terry DeWick for a rebuild, he is tops in that area. Lubrication is a different animal, but I believe Rabbi Rich uses with lithium grease, I would have to look that up. You may also want to check on tapeheads.com to see what the members there recommend. If you are looking for the best restorer of tape machines, that would be Tim Leinbaugh at Music Technology in Springfield, VA. I worked with Tim there several years back, he has been doing repairs and restos for decades.

As noted, the lacquer thinner was recommended by my tape tech. I've used it for years without problems. The soap-and-water regimen for pinch rollers was recommended by Terry Witt, of Terry's Rubber Rollers, who has probably re-rubbered more pinch rollers than anyone in history. 'Course he may simply be trying to increase future business, but I kinda doubt it.

I use my tape decks (Otari and Teac) daily and have a vested interest in keeping them in good shape.

Dave P.

EDIT Some follow-up. Forgot to mention that after the pinch rollers have been steeped in their Dawn bath, I scrub the surfaces with a toothbrush. You can tell just how anal I am about all this tape stuff by the fact that I have 3 pinch rollers for the Otari (and 4 headstacks) and 2 for the Teac (which has new heads), plus a Han-D-Mag tape head demagnetizer and a couple Annis magnetometers to help tell me when it's time to use the Han-D-Mag. I've been at this a L-O-N-G time.

As Walt noted, I would be very careful about using any lacquer thinner or the like on any tape heads. I believe it is not recommended, there are tape heads, such as the glass ferrite heads used by Akai and others (?) that lacquer thinner will loosen the lams, IPA seems to be the universal cleaner for tape heads, FWIW

I have found a good light oil is TS-619 sewing machine oil. It is a synthetic designed for commercial sewing machines that have heavy demands on their spindles. I use it straight and also doped with tungsten disulfide powder in extreme uses like firearms. Here is a link:

https://www.tsmoly.com/catalog/product_ ... cts_id=231

Tom