I ran into these a few times back when. They are ONLY for grabbing the
leader tape at the head of the tape - tape should never be stored on
them - especially tape without leader! If you find tape on these reels,
wind it to another reel and discard them immediately! One of the worst
ideas in tape ever thought up. Almost as bad as the old Ampex home
machines that had no takeup reel, you threaded tape into a slot and it
grabbed it and rolled it to an internal reel.

The clips are spring steel. Keep little fingers away!

Bad ideas, very bad!

Lou

Lou Judson • Intuitive Audio
415-883-2689

On Sep 14, 2005, at 5:54 PM, Richard L. Hess wrote:

> Mike,
>
> This reel didn't appear to have adhesive but rather three metal clips
> that spring from the inside of one of the flanges and narrow the width
> of the opening for about 10 mm. The three clips or grabbers extend
> farthest into the space normally occupied by the tape at the hub. At
> the 10 mm point, they are actually recessed into slots moulded in the
> flanges so the tape would contact the flange before the spring. The
> outside (adjacent to the flange) of the springs are silvery looking,
> the insides (which were adjacent to and/or touching the tape are
> green. The flange opposite the clips is frosted and I haven't gotten a
> good look at the surface of the clips/grabbers.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard