So, I inherited several bins of old open-reel tapes from my father, who passed away recently. These bins are recordings of lectures from half a century ago that I consider to be irreplaceable, and personally deeply important. So, naturally, I wish to preserve them in a more sustainable form. Many are recorded at 1-7/8 inches/second, which was acceptable for voice, but there are a some music tapes recorded at higher speeds. Most good decks don't go that slow, but I'm figuring (without having actually explored the matter) that cutting the speed in half in software will be trivially easy and no worse that going slower in the first place.
I have two old open-reel tape machines: A cheapie Sony TC-355, with rather severely worn heads, and a much nicer Teac A-4010. The Sony was in a cabinet in my father's office, but I do not recall him ever owning a Sony (I think he may have had a Realistic open-reel player back in the day). The Teac was mine, and I bought it used from a guy who had trouble with it, thinking I could fix it. Which I did at the time and used it for some years before it became flaky again.
The Sony uses a single motor and a bunch of idler wheels and linkages to pipe the motion around to where it is needed. It took me about 20 minutes to put all that right well enough to get a sense of the machine. I thought it might be easier to make the Sony work because of that mechanical linkage, instead of relay-logic driving solenoids as with three-motor decks, and I was right--the mechanics work...okay. Wow and flutter is noticeable, which is not surprising given that the idler wheels have turned to granite, but the concept was proved well enough that I could probably find replacements for the idlers to help with that. But the sound through those deeply grooved heads was just unbearable, even considering the low-fi recordings. Replacing heads is beyond my interest in the project, and probably beyond my skill. Plus, I don't own a proper test tape.
So, in a fit of gusto, I went to the store-room and unearthed the old Teac and hauled it downstairs. I had set about to rebuild this machine about 30 years ago, and never did so, but at least I kept all the bits. For anyone like me who loves machines, these are remarkable contraptions, and one can't imagine anyone making anything like them now for any reasonable sum of money.
I replaced the crumbled capstan belt and the distorted counter belt, disassembled and cleaned the capstan bearings, likewise the slip clutch on the capstan motor that prevents a change in direction from breaking the tape (this deck has bi-directional playback), and cleaned and oiled the motors and solenoids and linkages. The heads are perfect, the pinch roller is really still in excellent condition, and now that the bearings are clean and relubricated, the things that spin do so effortlessly and noiselessly. The pinch roller snaps up and down just as it is supposed to, but often doesn't if YouTube is to be trusted. All that took a couple of evenings and maybe fifty bucks in materials.
I ordered a bunch of axial film capacitors to replace the oil-and-paper snubber caps on all the microswitches and relay outputs (they have not yet arrived), and used up half a can of DeOxit on the pots and switches throughout. All the solenoids work perfectly now, and give that satisfying THUNK! that tells the world this is a serious piece of equipment and not some black plastic crap. I even cleaned up the black dirt spot that somehow made it to the rug before I was found out.
But all is not well in ancient-Teac-land. The audio output is badly tainted by power-supply noise, so I'm sure there are leaky caps in the power supply that need to be replaced. That I expected, though there is also distortion that makes me wonder if the germanium transistors Teac used in this old machine are also in trouble. I might get better audio from the playback preamp, which is externally piped through the record preamp, which is a separate product housed in the same wood cabinet. But what I didn't expect was that whatever the circuit uses (it's a relay) to switch voltages to the reel motors doesn't recover from fast wind, with the result that the reel motors don't come on after winding. That's what put this machine on the shelf in the first place--the relays are unobtainium and a flaky relay that has been cleaned properly might be a flaky coil that demands replacement.
I suppose I could take it apart further and continue to fix it, buying parts from other Teacs being parted out, but suddenly that gusto has faded, and has been replaced by a far deeper level of foolishness. If I had confidence that it would work, I'd probably be willing to invest the several more hours it would take to replace caps and relays and so on. The deeper foolishness would have me add to the pile with another deck that will still probably need those hours, but that is already at a more confidence-inspiring starting point.
So, to the lovers of vintage equipment in general and open-reel decks in particular (@restorer-john, etc.), talk me back from the edge: I'm pondering the purchase of a slightly newer Teac A-4300SX or something similar--much newer electronics (no germaniums, better caps, etc.), a plausible claim that it works presently, and return privileges. I think I can sneak half a kilobuck or a bit more past the Redhead, but not the over-a-kilobuck price that properly serviced decks seem to fetch you-know-where.
Rick "calling all therapists!" Denney
I have two old open-reel tape machines: A cheapie Sony TC-355, with rather severely worn heads, and a much nicer Teac A-4010. The Sony was in a cabinet in my father's office, but I do not recall him ever owning a Sony (I think he may have had a Realistic open-reel player back in the day). The Teac was mine, and I bought it used from a guy who had trouble with it, thinking I could fix it. Which I did at the time and used it for some years before it became flaky again.
The Sony uses a single motor and a bunch of idler wheels and linkages to pipe the motion around to where it is needed. It took me about 20 minutes to put all that right well enough to get a sense of the machine. I thought it might be easier to make the Sony work because of that mechanical linkage, instead of relay-logic driving solenoids as with three-motor decks, and I was right--the mechanics work...okay. Wow and flutter is noticeable, which is not surprising given that the idler wheels have turned to granite, but the concept was proved well enough that I could probably find replacements for the idlers to help with that. But the sound through those deeply grooved heads was just unbearable, even considering the low-fi recordings. Replacing heads is beyond my interest in the project, and probably beyond my skill. Plus, I don't own a proper test tape.
So, in a fit of gusto, I went to the store-room and unearthed the old Teac and hauled it downstairs. I had set about to rebuild this machine about 30 years ago, and never did so, but at least I kept all the bits. For anyone like me who loves machines, these are remarkable contraptions, and one can't imagine anyone making anything like them now for any reasonable sum of money.
I replaced the crumbled capstan belt and the distorted counter belt, disassembled and cleaned the capstan bearings, likewise the slip clutch on the capstan motor that prevents a change in direction from breaking the tape (this deck has bi-directional playback), and cleaned and oiled the motors and solenoids and linkages. The heads are perfect, the pinch roller is really still in excellent condition, and now that the bearings are clean and relubricated, the things that spin do so effortlessly and noiselessly. The pinch roller snaps up and down just as it is supposed to, but often doesn't if YouTube is to be trusted. All that took a couple of evenings and maybe fifty bucks in materials.
I ordered a bunch of axial film capacitors to replace the oil-and-paper snubber caps on all the microswitches and relay outputs (they have not yet arrived), and used up half a can of DeOxit on the pots and switches throughout. All the solenoids work perfectly now, and give that satisfying THUNK! that tells the world this is a serious piece of equipment and not some black plastic crap. I even cleaned up the black dirt spot that somehow made it to the rug before I was found out.
But all is not well in ancient-Teac-land. The audio output is badly tainted by power-supply noise, so I'm sure there are leaky caps in the power supply that need to be replaced. That I expected, though there is also distortion that makes me wonder if the germanium transistors Teac used in this old machine are also in trouble. I might get better audio from the playback preamp, which is externally piped through the record preamp, which is a separate product housed in the same wood cabinet. But what I didn't expect was that whatever the circuit uses (it's a relay) to switch voltages to the reel motors doesn't recover from fast wind, with the result that the reel motors don't come on after winding. That's what put this machine on the shelf in the first place--the relays are unobtainium and a flaky relay that has been cleaned properly might be a flaky coil that demands replacement.
I suppose I could take it apart further and continue to fix it, buying parts from other Teacs being parted out, but suddenly that gusto has faded, and has been replaced by a far deeper level of foolishness. If I had confidence that it would work, I'd probably be willing to invest the several more hours it would take to replace caps and relays and so on. The deeper foolishness would have me add to the pile with another deck that will still probably need those hours, but that is already at a more confidence-inspiring starting point.
So, to the lovers of vintage equipment in general and open-reel decks in particular (@restorer-john, etc.), talk me back from the edge: I'm pondering the purchase of a slightly newer Teac A-4300SX or something similar--much newer electronics (no germaniums, better caps, etc.), a plausible claim that it works presently, and return privileges. I think I can sneak half a kilobuck or a bit more past the Redhead, but not the over-a-kilobuck price that properly serviced decks seem to fetch you-know-where.
Rick "calling all therapists!" Denney
" Denney
