[Info-vax] Respooling a TK50 Tape

[shadoooo]

Hello.
If your tape was sticky on the head, probably you are facing the
infamous sticky-shed syndrome.
It is caused by the humidity that has been adsorbed by the tape
polymer in the years.
The polymer tend to become like rubber, causing a lot of friction over
the heads.
In this kind of tape units, without the capstan, the tape has a
constant tension that assure that the right
amount of force is applied to the head surface by the tape.
While all works good if the tape is new and the surface is slippy,
when the tape loses it's superficial flatness
and become sticky, the pressure let it adhere so much to the head,
that it will literally stick to the head.
Sometime, when you detach the tape from the head, an amount of
magnetic substrate remains on the head, together
with some of the glue used to attach the magnetic substrate to the
support polymer.
Of course this is the worst case, when your data is almost unreadable
anymore.
My suggestion: if you have very important data on the tape, you could
try to bake it in a oven at 50 °C for 8 hours.
The temperature MUST be very precise and not oscillate, or your data
could be damaged forever or the tape could even melt.
It's better to take the tape cassette in a closed bag together with an
strong humidity adsorber (silica gel for example)
before the bake operation, so you are sure that it's well
dehumidified.
Then, as soon as the tape is cold, you can try to read it. Take in
consideration that it could be the one and only chance
you have to read it, so prepare the drive ready and well cleaned,
specially the heads, to remove any trace of glue or iron oxide.
Then, of course, don't use this old cassette anymore.

Let me know if you are lucky.
Andrea