Erik, The answers follow your questions... At 07:51 AM 2/5/2002, you wrote: Dear Mr. Ciletti, I received your e-mail yesterday and would like to ask the questions outlined in my last e-mail. I thought by making them more simple to read it might be easier. Again the tapes were kept in a normal conditions apartment attached to the radio station in Waverly, Iowa. Only a handful, molded tapes were stored on a shelf by the stairwell leading to the basement. The basement was moldy smelling, and must have been damp in the Summer especially along the walls. The backs of the boxes against the wall is where the mold was most pronounced and worst, Q: mold on just the outside, but not the inside? some of the tapes on the top of the stack did not have any mold, but they smelled like it. I don't think moldy "smell" is anything to worry about. My opinion this area can be considered "wet" or "damp". But that leads me to the following questions, the age of the tapes, with the issue of the binder being a newer less prone to "hydration". ALL tapes are susceptible. Some are more prone than others. Pre-1970 tapes are better behaved. Well, here they are. 1) Is baking going to effect the recorded material on the tapes? A: No, not if done correctly. if I bake them regardless of how they look, mold, clean, nice pack, and so on. A: You can only bake tapes with a SMOOTH PACK. I am concerned it may destroy the songs. I am sure that is wrong, but is a good measure to bake anyway? A: Assuming the tape is packed well, but is still questionable, it is generally better to bake first. Are they too new and not nessasary to bake? Nothing is too new. We're talking five years old minimum, correct? 2) If I bake them, should I adhere to your report and bake them half the time listed for 1/4" tape since they are all from after 1984/1985? they are all Mylar backing, the Oxide is brown color. the "Scotch" Logo is on the leaders of the reel. I would bake them for a minimum of two hours, three to four hours is fine, bake at a lower temperature if going for longer time. I think flipping the tapes ensures even heat and air circulation. Cool for as long as you bake, preferably in a palstic bag loaded with a fresh silica gel pack. 3) With that in mind, how long should I bake them? The report claims 1-4 hours, let them cool for the same time, 1-4 hours in the box before use. Should I run them 1 hour? or three and so on? How do I determine how long to bake? The length issue is a matter of how damaged the tapes are. If possible to play them on a machine that has ONLY moving guides rollers -- Studer, ampex ATR-100 series -- BUT WITH THE HEADSTACK REMOVED. My preference is to play them backwards under reduced pressure (playing a 10.5 inch reel using the 7.5 inch reel settings) and at reduced speed (the slowest the machine will go. Do this under observation and stop if the "stick-tion" seems out of control. What you must watch out for is oxide sticking to the backing of the tape. There is not much you can do about it, but on one 10-inch reel, I had several pieces of tape from different brands and batches. One piece had transferred the oxide to the backing. You must be as concerned about the backing as with the oxide layer itself. 4) My American Harvest FD-50 is at least 5 years old, with average use. Should I worry about dangerous magnetic fields with the fan motor due to its use and age? If I should, how can I check it? No, I already checked it out. 5) Do you recomend I buy a new FD-50 Dehydrator. Regardless of my units condition, or is my unit going to be okay? 6) All my tapes have a "bakelite" like plastic hub. Not metal, do I need to wind every tape onto a metal reel hub? You mention a NAB hub, are these considered NAB? Some of the tapes the newer ones to be exact, 1987-1988 are plastic molded reels completely, no separate hub that you can take apart with a screw driver, the other reels from TM are metal flanged with that heavy black "Bakelite" center hub. Should I get these onto another hub before baking, and maybe they do not need to be baked at all since they are so new? only a handful of them have a slight spot of mold on them. From what I understand the NAB hubs are the wider 3" diameter holes, these are all that size. I would guess from your article, that you need the wider 3" hub to clear the inner opening of the trays on the dehydrator. NAB is the big hub. Since I am not a deity, I cannot tell you which tapes will have problems. You can do a random sample, playing the tape gently backwards (assuming tail out) is preferred, rather than fast-forward or rewind. 7) As for mold on the tape, how will that effect the tapes performance? Does baking take care of this? I should wipe the mold off before baking, right!? And with what would you recomend, a soft 100% cotton cloth?, the soft cloth slightly wet, and how wet should it be? Press very lightly, due to potential damage to the edge of the tape? Richard mentions that the mold should not affect the tape or the recorded material on it, but it should be cleaned off before use, is that right? A: If the tape pack is good, I might move the flanges and wipe the edges with a cloth dampened in 99% alcohol. One point I tried to make in the article is that AFTER baking, I put cloth across the heads and play the tapes in both directions to get any remaining debris. It is good to find a place to put the cloth so that the backing gets cleaned also. You can tell how good the baking job went after less than five minutes of play. If the pack was good, I believe you will find the mold will not have penetrated much. But when the pack is bad, more damage is done. 8) As for the boxes that have mold on them, does this effect the tape now? Should I get them away from the moldy box? We have new boxes out in Tulsa from Polyline. Yeah, get 'em out of the funky boxes. 9) On the issue of "Uneven Pack" unevenly rewound on the reel. How would you recomend I go about the rewinding? Very few of the tapes are so-uneven that the tape slightly touches the inside of the reel. Is that section of tape damaged beyond use? Or will straightening out the pack fix the problem. Should I do this before baking? Or after, if I should bake? You mention using special care in rewinding, however how do you go about that? Your article does not appear to mention that. Unless I missed it. I explained this earlier in the reply. Reverse play is the safest way to rewind. leaving a tape in the PLAYED (tail out) state is the best preventive maintenance. It also reduces PRE-ECHO, post-ech being masked and more tolerable. As I speak with Richard our CEO, He tells me that you call it "tails out" I understand the term and now that begining of the tape is actually the end. You rewind to another reel and palyback to the finish and they are so to speak automatically rewound. I all need to do is wind forward to another reel and rewind again? Or am I incorrect, he said he knows. I will get it straightened out for sure. But let me know your take on the subject of "Uneven Pack". You can't bake a tape with uneven pack. It is the one thing that will damage the tape. The tape needs to be supported FLAT across its width, otherwise baking will cause the edges to "scallop." Of all the things you worry about, achieving a good tape pack is most important. If before or after baking, oxide sticks to the backing -- well, you can't prevent that, but again, gently playing the tape without the headstack to cause friction -- the tape will not shed nearly as much on rolling guides -- you can at least get a sense that the tape will recover well or NOT. 10) Back to the FD-50 issue, I have ten or more trays, my wife is a vegitarian with the Hydrator being an excellent source for baking fruit prep in general. It is immaculate, very clean. My wife is a perfectionist. Should I place the reel(s) as far on top as possible or does it matter? How many reels can I bake at a run? Two, three or four? Or just one at a time? Four is a good number. DO rotate the tapes, placing the top one on the bottom, flipping over, etc. You can bake silica gel packs too. 11) Based on the age of my tapes, 1984-1989. Do you think that binder issue was solved by this time? I would guess this tape was new when they were recorded. Do you think baking can be avoided? It is a huge time factor to play in here. I am not flush on time however I will do as you recomend, by al means. But if it does not need to be done, I would like to avoid it if possible. Taking time is the only way to get this job done. It is not the type of job that can be done unsupervised. ALL tapes are suspect. Again, you can do random testing, you'll know in less than 5 minutes of playing. 12) As for the issue of stacking the reels, they were neatly stacked, not virtical. I wish they were, but they were not. Richard tells me the tape reels are the biggest to suffer in this matter. They can become warped. The metal flanges are warpable when the excess weight of the stack on top. Under close observation the "tape" does not look at all traumatized, the reel maybe. But I could not tell until I put on a machine and ran it. I do not have a tape deck here in Osage. Is that all that commonly happens? If not what other issues can I inspect visually to determine what to do? We plan on running the tape onto another reel, in place of keeping the old one. We will properly store them now. I have them virtical now in my office. If the flanges are warped you should wind onto a nice reel before baking. 13) That leads me to the final question. Am I able to bake these tapes ahead of time if you suggest that I do. I plan to transfer in the first few weeks of March. Am I able to bake these tapes now in this month, & bring them down with me already done? You can bake them, but the tapes should be stored in plastic bags with silica gel packs. As for questions, I can't think of any more to ask, I would love any suggestions you might have. Please let me know. I hope my efforts here will pay off. The music contained on these reels are fabulous, and it would be a crying shame if they were lost because I did not take the proper cautions, and heed all the rules of tape handling and care. I am glad you are out there. Well, we all have our missions in life. Right not I am restoring an open reel B&W video deck from 1969. Seems I am the only one with video from my high school from the period and mine was the out-take reel. Let me know if you have more questions. ec Thank you in advance, Erik Lindgren Director of Operations American Institute of Beautiful Music Archives/ Digital, Analog Suite One 219 North 4th Street Osage, IA 50461 641-732-1203 erik@americanbeautiful.org dlindgren@osage.k12.ia.us