Splicing Tape

Had an Amazing Blondel tape that had way too much tape to wind back on the
hub-it had to be cut to manage it.
I tried a razor balde then spliced the thing back together; dang if I can
hear where the cut is!
Nice surprise.

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 14:51:59 GMT, "ommadawn"
wrote:

Had an Amazing Blondel tape that had way too much tape to wind back on the
hub-it had to be cut to manage it.
I tried a razor balde then spliced the thing back together; dang if I can
hear where the cut is!
Nice surprise. snip

You should never have to "cut" a tape to get it all back on the
reel...it's just an exercise in three dimensional geometry. I have a
couple that took me a couple of days to untangle, but I've never cut
one. One reason for not doing this is that setting the back tension
with the new splice becomes arbitrary. Sounds like you lucked out.

Yes, but when the tape was all wound in with no flips, it was way too long;
it would have hung out of the cartridge.
What do do in this situation?

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 16:34:15 GMT, "ommadawn"
wrote:

Yes, but when the tape was all wound in with no flips, it was way too long;
it would have hung out of the cartridge.
What do do in this situation? snip

You got to the splice, cut it, and wind the excess back on the outer
side of the pancake, pull the end until the tape "squeaks," then back
off 2 turns, make the splice and run it back in to the cart using the
reel. Simple, and the back tension will be set properly. On VERY
thin tapes, like 90s and "double plays," back off 3 turns.

Charlie Nudo thinks you're a plant...he's a paranoid delusional.
Ignore him.

I guess the fact that there was excess hanging out means there WAS a problem
with the tension; too loose I would think, judging by the excess.

No, I'm not a plant, just a human.

I've been here longer than just about anybody, but don't post too often;
only when I have questions.
I grew up on 8-tracks ($1.99 specials, mostly) and have many in my closet,
but never play them for the lack of a good player.
Now I'm finally taking the things out and dusting them off.
That's why the sudden increase in postings...

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 17:25:48 GMT, "ommadawn"
wrote:

I guess the fact that there was excess hanging out means there WAS a problem
with the tension; too loose I would think, judging by the excess.

No, I'm not a plant, just a human.

I've been here longer than just about anybody, but don't post too often;
only when I have questions.
I grew up on 8-tracks ($1.99 specials, mostly) and have many in my closet,
but never play them for the lack of a good player.
Now I'm finally taking the things out and dusting them off.
That's why the sudden increase in postings... snip

I got interested in this format just to do experiments to see how good
the medium could be, and I got some surprises, when using good
equipment and good machines. Still, 8 track is a very "maintenance
heavy" format, which is one reason people hated it so much. I have
amassed a lot of music for cheap by getting 8 tracks, and the better
ones I'm burning to CD-R. About 30% of the 8 tracks I get in aren't
worth dubbing to CD, due to various problems, and the other 70% are
listenable, but have little artifacts here and there that let you know
they're 8 tracks.

translation- it took Bob until 2005, to find out that 8-tracks were
better than cassettes- so now he has to buy a complete collection of
****ty worn out tapes on Ebay, and pay shipping out the ass

he was too mentally challenged to stock up on new tapes back in the
1970's and keep them...he was always buying into "fads", i.e. ****ty
cassettes

what a dummy !

(laughter...)