From: liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid   
      
   Cursitor Doom  wrote:   
      
   [...]   
   [Ferrograph Logic 7]   
      
   > I bought mine for an absurdly low price at an auction of house   
   > contents (just over a hundred quid) - but spent almost ten times that   
   > amount on putting it back to original specification. ...   
      
   Mine came from a scrapyard in the days when the BBC disposed of their   
   unwanted gear by that route.  I invested in a copy of the full sevice   
   manual, which meant I could do all the repairs and servicing myself.  I   
   was doing transfers from discs for the UK National Sound Archive and had   
   to meet their specifications: every tape had to begin with a set of   
   line-up tones to confirm that the azimuth and speed were spot-on and the   
   bias settings and equalisation were correct for that particular reel of   
   tape.  If the playback wasn't within their specified limits, the tape   
   came back and I had to do the whole job again (and didn't get paid until   
   it was satisfactory).   
      
   Other transcriptors rather looked down on the Ferrographs as being   
   dated, clunky battleships (one commented "You could play a length of   
   bicycle chain on that thing!"), but I found they had been designed by   
   people who actually had to use them professionally in arduous   
   conditions, not by salesmen in plush showrooms.  A tape path that looked   
   so easy to thread in some other machines turned ito a contortionist's   
   nightmare when it came to fast cut-and-splice editing because parts of   
   the swish-looking casing got in the way of the tape when you needed to   
   lift it out of the heads.  The Ferrograph *was* clunky - and all the   
   better for it.   
      
   [...]   
   >   
   > Well, it's all new to me having to deal with vintage tape. Back in the   
   > day, the tapes we had were still young and fresh and this issue simply   
   > never arose (not in my personal experience at any rate). My serviceman   
   > reckons it's a good idea to use IPA intially, then polish the heads   
   > with Autosol to get rid of any invisible remaining residue and it's an   
   > approach I now plan to stick to in future!   
      
   Try not to leave the IPA on the pinch wheel for any length of time, as I   
   have heard it can harden the rubber.  If the pinch wheel tyre ever   
   starts to go badly wrong (e.g. mushy), you can get away with cutting the   
   rubber off and stacking 3  'O'-rings on the metal core until such time   
   as you can get a proper replacement.  Don't get the mush on your skin,   
   it is dangerous.   
      
   I have never used Auto-Sol on the heads but I imagine it would be very   
   effective - possibly a little too effective for anything other than   
   occasional use in extreme circumstances.   
      
      
   --   
   ~ Liz Tuddenham ~   
   (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)   
   www.poppyrecords.co.uk   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)