Interesting exchange. Based on the comments in this thread, it would 
appear that my suspicions over the years regarding the variance in 
quality control at various manufacturing facilities around the world is 
justified.

FWIT: Although I have experienced shedding issues with various tapes 
manufactured by both AGFA and BASF, I don't believe I have ever 
encountered any issues with binder breakdown. I have also had extensive 
experience with AGFA and BASF magnetic film stocks, both in production 
use and archival transfers. During the 1970's these were some of the 
most consistent stocks we encountered. We recently transferred a number 
of reels of AGFA acetate base stock from the early 1970's, which had 
excellent wind characteristics, virtually no shedding, and only very 
minimal VS.

On the other hand, I recently transferred some 1/4" and 1" reels of 3M 
206 and 208, some of which was of fairly recent vintage, and all of the 
material exhibited problems with binder breakdown (all of it was stored 
in good vault conditions). Go figure....

--Scott

Scott D. Smith CAS
Chicago Audio Works, Inc.

On 2/17/2012 11:38 AM, Goran Finnberg wrote:
> Shai Drori:
>
>> after years of using BASF tapes I never ran across a bad batch.
> Agreed 100%
>
>> There were obviously better and worse tapes but after working
>> with them 10-30 years ago and now digitizing them, not a single
>> tape that needed baking or treatment.
> Agreed 100%
>
> Swedish Radio is at the moment transferring about 300 000 tapes, mostly
> BASF, to digital and so far after 2 years of doing transfers there has not
> been one single case of any BASF tapes needing baking.
>
> The work is supposed to end in summer 2013 with 25 people working two shifts
> each day for total 16 hours work each day.
>
> All tape machines are Studer. A807, A812 and A820.
>
>> Weird.
> Not so.
>
> Dipl.-Ing = Msc EE Günther Dreher of the BASF Applications Engineering Dept.
> Audio-Tape pointed out to me that BASF is the biggest Chemical Company in
> the word with more than 150 000 people employed wordwide in the mid 80´s.
>
> The magnetic tape department was like an almost nonexistent drop in the
> ocean that is BASF.
>
> That the magnetic tape division went belly up meant nothing to the colossus
> that is BASF.
>
> Günther Dreher told me that BASF was the only company in the world that made
> ALL the chemical parts contained in the slurry that was coated onto the
> polyester backing.
>
> No other company in the world had this advantage and had to relay on buying
> what they needed from external sources.
>
> This meant that BASF had total control on every single part in the slurry.
> Which was NOT the case for the competition as the external sources would not
> reveal in exact detail what was being sold.
>
> And the condition that led up to the sticky shed debacle was well known and
> understood by the chemical engineers at the magnetic tape division according
> to Günther Dreher.
>
> His claim was that "You will never see any BASF magnetic tape go sticky shed
> ever"
>
> So far his claims appear totally true to me.
>