Falling under the category of, “Thank goodness we have CD’s now,” inSync reader S. S. has the following question:
“I am in the process of trying to archive to CD some old reel to reel tapes. When attempting this in the past, I have problems with the tape sticking to itself and/or gobs of gunk building up on the guides and heads. Is there some sort of (possibly dry) lubricant or other way to help salvage these tapes?”
You don’t want to put any sort of foreign substance on the tape or the tape path. The best solution is to keep your tape path very clean by cleaning after every pass of tape, and to bake your tape. Yes, I said to bake your tape. Baking, or cooking, the tape will dry it out and reaffix the oxide to the backing. Obviously this can be a delicate issue. You need to know a bit more about cooking times and temperatures. For that I will respectfully send you off to a very nice article by Eddie Ciletti of EQ magazine. He provides all the info you need to get started, including where do buy the handy Snackmaster™ Pro model FD-50 unit used for the cooking.