Curing Sticky Tape Syndrome A Must Read! (2024)

I decided rather than trash my new reel of sticky Ampex 407 that I’d try the Nu Finish remedy. I did however spool the 407 on to one of my cheapo gray reels . The nice Ampex reel and box now houses RMGI LPR-35 but maybe that was a premature decision.

Anyway I set the reels on my TEAC going directly reel to reel bypassing the transport. From there I saturated a cotton disk swab with Nu Finish. I hit fast forward . I stopped every 200 ft to reload the swab and turn it to a counter pointing angle. I proceeded to the end then did the same procedure in rewind. I repeated the operation three times. Once I was certain that I had done all I could and the swab was picking up less crud I took a clean dry swab and rewound and fast forwarded the tape twice. Gradually the swab ran cleaner and cleaner. Then I removed the reels and put NuFinish on all the guides and cleaned the facia. This stuff is nice and it works great as a polish.

Then it was time to test the tape. I loaded my newly purchased Counting Crows August And Everything After CD. I love this collection and have only known it on cassette since 1993! I set the levels and put the monitor into off the heads mode donned the Sennheiser 280’s crossed my fingers and hit record. Rround Here came off the heads through the headphones loud and clear, picture perfect! Ok so 3 minutes of good recording…big deal! Omaha repeated the performance of Round Here and midway through I said “Hmmm maybe there’s something to this.” By the time Mr. Jones screamed across I knew this reel of tape had been saved and saved well! I couldn't help but laugh out loud and I watch the VU's pegging to this classic song! This is Ampex as I remember it and I know why I loved it so much! Well the entire CD recorded perfect and even though I had tortured the tape when first run as it stuck to the transport a half dozen times and it bunched up and twisted more than once! But this didn’t seem to matter! There’s no dropouts or indications that the tape twisted! But more importantly it runs and runs fine. Also it sound amazing just as it should!

So whatever is in Nu Finish it does seem to cut and into the bad layers of coating and it also seems to coat the tape and act as a lubricant for both the tape and transport. Call me an optimist but I have the feeling that this stuff does a better job than baking. I think using it before baking is best as the last thing you want is to have the unstable coating stabilized so it can’t be removed by the Nu Finish. Maybe bake it after just for good measure? I wouldn’t bother heat treating the tape as this easy enough and more or less mess free. Lastly the tape now spools even just like normal tape should!

This is the treated reel and bottle of Nu Finish.

GCalo said:

Have you tried this on any other Ampex tape versions since this experiment?

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Yes I've treated an ancient Scotch 144 and Ampex 632. Neither tape was sticky but I wanted to see how treatment works with good tapes. It made the tapes run easier in the transport. Sound and record qualities are unaffected.

sweetbeats said:

So what happens when you FFW or REW the tape when threaded through the tape path?

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Once treatment has been completed the tape runs in the transport (all aspects of transport) just fine. It does seem to glide over heads and guides easier. I've treated my guides with NuFinish.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm .... well, I'm not sure I really want to remove any of the oxide as opposed to baking it because, for me, the only thing I want to do is be able to archive stuff I already have recorded on the tape. Seems like removing coating will also remove some of the recorded signal whereas baking is supposed to allow me to play the tape thru to downlaod it to a different media.

Maybe if you're still recording on R to R this might be the way to go but what does it do to stuff that's already recorded?

Lance Lawson said:

So whatever is in Nu Finish it does seem to cut and into the bad layers of coating and it also seems to coat the tape and act as a lubricant for both the tape and transport. Call me an optimist but I have the feeling that this stuff does a better job than baking.

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It's car polish. Most polish has some sort of abrasives or chemicals to "cut through" (as you say) and remove. Do you really want that on your tape and heads?

Also, not sure how smart it is adding yet another layer of chemicals to the tape. When/if the tape starts to let go again, you will have also this additional layer of "stuff" all over your tape and guides.
I'm curious to see how this turns out down the road....

+1.

With all due respect, I'd never coat my tape with anything even if it does "cure" sticky shed. There really isn't any cure for sticky shed per-se, and there really isn't any way to know what may be being left in/on the heads.

According to the Nu-Finish FAQ on their website: "Do not use Nu Finish Car Polish on vinyl, plastic trim..." Tape base material is plastic. Some of those polishes can leech into the material to which they are applied and, over time, break down that material.

Nu-Finish contains "cleaners" and abrasives in order to polish the surface as Miroslav said.

Thanks but no thanks.

sweetbeats said:

+1.

With all due respect, I'd never coat my tape with anything even if it does "cure" sticky shed. There really isn't any cure for sticky shed per-se, and there really isn't any way to know what may be being left in/on the heads.

According to the Nu-Finish FAQ on their website: "Do not use Nu Finish Car Polish on vinyl, plastic trim..." Tape base material is plastic. Some of those polishes can leech into the material to which they are applied and, over time, break down that material.

Nu-Finish contains "cleaners" and abrasives in order to polish the surface as Miroslav said.

See Also

Sticky - Audio-Rescue

Thanks but no thanks.

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I was kinda wondering about that. Didn't seem like a good idea but I wanted to wait 'till the analog mavens chimed in.

Magnetic tape is abrasive in and of itself. Nu Finish leaves a polymer coating on the tape. This coating does not have any potential abrsives. The potential abrasives, if indeed there are any are applied and removed while the tape is not running in the full transport.

The originator of the process treated sticky Ampex and Sony tapes in 1993. These treated tapes are today still playable and still stable with no further sticky development. Visit this thread on Tapeheads.net you'll hear directly what he has to say.

That said it's no loss to me if no one wants to try this but as of now there's not a roll of Ampex from any era that I'll shy away from and perhaps its my gain.

To answer the question the treatment does not affect the playback and recording properties of the tape. My treated Ampex is NOS unrecorded on when treated. It does however perform perfectly in all respects. If that's not enough sorry. Anyone with further questions PM me I won't waste my time arguing the merits of this revolutionary treatment when there are hundreds of thousands of miles of useless sticky tape out there that could become usable again.

Lance, nice of you to share your experiment. But if your not willing to “waste time” with follow up and questions we can’t get a lot out of it. I saw the original post “A PERMANENT SOLUTION TO STICKY SHED SYNDROME” on audio asylum and Tape-Op by ggoat (Jeff Koon) shortly after it was posted some years ago. We’ve discussed it here before and I’ve come to the conclusion it’s largely a work of fiction. The scenario is too perfect. Even if I’m wrong about that, his follow-up comments at tape-op demonstrate fundamental misconceptions about the nature of sticky-shed.

Before 3M patented the baking process there were many attempts to remedy the problem and some involved silicone lubricants. Those early attempts are still out there on the web being recycled. Just remember they were tried before researchers at 3M fully understood what was happening with sticky-shed. What they discovered is that the binder absorbs moisture. The tape actually expands so the pancake is measurably larger in diameter. Baking removes the moisture. If you’ve ever baked tape you’ll see that it falls to the bottom reel flange in a loosened condition. It needs to be rewound before use after baking to get a tight even wind again. The slack is caused by removal of the moisture. You can’t reverse this hydrolysis with any lubricant, including NuFinish. You can perhaps cover it for a time, but there is nothing currently available that permanently restores tape to its pre-sticky condition.

It’s especially important for people contemplating the use of bad tape for new recordings to know that the tape remains or will return to an unstable condition. Treatment of sticky-shed tape is purely for recovery of existing recordings on the tape.

To know if a tape “Performs perfectly in all respects” one would need to do a comparison frequency response test with a known good tape at minimum to see if the tape under test reflects the measurements of the tape brand and model in general. Koon offered no such tests, but only speaks in subjective terms like, “The recordings sound as good as they did 14 years ago”… something like that. Member ggoat at Tape-Op still only has 10 posts, apparently all but 2 or 3 in that one thread that he started as an unknown in May 2007. I wouldn’t bet my music on it.

One final note is that if what Koon says is true he still only tested the tape under storage conditions, not in use. Lubricants will eventually wear off in use over time. In a multitracking environment it will take much less time for that to occur.

Well anyway... be careful!

Beck said:

I’ve come to the conclusion it’s largely a work of fiction. The scenario is too perfect.

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Isn't ggoat the same guy who sells Lipozene...?

Lt. Bob said:

well ...... I can wipe my sticky shed tape with a regular cotton ball with nothing on it and get that particular result. I know this because I have. The stuff comes off easily which is the whole problem. And you don't really want to take that stuff off ...... you want to get it to stay in place.

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Exactly.

I've done that also with head cleaner...and yup...a lot of the gunk comes off and the tape looks nice and clean/shiny, but the underlying tape sticky shed problem is still there and the chemicals on the tape have not been fixed or cured.
I'm sure Nu Finish is doing nothing more than that, not to mention, it's adding another layer of chemicals on top of the tape and all over the guides, however...the underlying chemicals on the tape have not been changed/fixed. They are still deteriorating, and after many years of serious pros and chemists looking at the problem, the only temporary solution that does fix the chemicals on the tape is "baking".

Lance....no one is saying you are selling Nu Finish, but you are selling a "solution" to tape shed & stick...and that solution is based on one guy making a few posts on some forum, and apparently never coming back to follow-up.
So 'scuse us if we're skeptical and ain't buying it.
I'm sure there would be dozens of serious tape users at pro studios who have been looking for ways to salvage all those countless reels of major sessions who would have been all over the Nu Finish "solution"...if it was a real solution.

Lance Lawson said:

I'm offering a way to make usless tape serviceable again ...... I won't waste my time wading through reasons why not to try the treatment posted by people who've not tried it.

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...and this is the problem, that if you actually went through some of the "why not to try the treatment" comments, maybe you would have a more balanced outlook. To ignore is not very smart, reasonable or scientific.

As was posted previously (and you seemingly chose to ignore), the introduction of god-knows-what chemicals into a tape is a very risky procedure with unknown longer term consequences. We can only speculate, from the manufacturer's own words (and ingredient list) what Nu Finish may do to the likes of recording tape. I would never recommend anyone, under any circ*mstance use any chemicals such as this on recording tape or on their tape machine. Nice experiment but a dangerous solution, IMO.

Ask me questions about the treatment process. But I won't entertain negative posts by people who haven't tired it. Baking can be considered barely a treatment as it does not produce a long term or even a reasonable running solution.

We the reel to reel tape community have been plagued with sticky tape for a couple of decades now. We've all cried the blues about and we've all experienced it. Perhaps the community has gotten too used to whining about our poor tapes but our poor tapes are in reality next to useless.

I've already separated the polymer from the ceramic material which is feared an abrasive. So I've eliminated that part of the danger. By the time I'm done I'll have a container of the pure sealant to try on my next batch of Ampex. But the preliminary test performed today indicate that the pure polymer sans the ceramic solid coats buffs and seals just like the standard product. Maybe the mods should have the opposition post a counter thread that way those who want to learn about this won't have to wade through needless posts.