This has been a great thread--and I'd like to focus on one part of it.

Perhaps there was a different version of Ampex 456 sold into the 
Commonwealth? Could that be? Although I think all of the 456 I have had 
has come from Opelika.

Ted in the UK, Marie in NZ, and I'm in Canada and we are all seeing 
extended baking times for 456 and related tapes much of the time.

The problem is it's easy once you see the need for extended baking times 
to make it part of your protocol. It does no damage, whereas 
insufficient baking can create a problem.

But, we have Tom saying he hasn't seen the need and that concurs with 
the Library of Congress's experience.

When I discussed it with the LoC, they were quite surprised, but in the 
conversation, they indicated that all of their material was coming from 
their climate controlled vaults and had been there for extended periods.

I know that some of the tapes I have received from Canada, Bermuda, and 
the USA have had horrible storage profiles. I suspect that is true for 
some of the 456 etc that I have received, but the worst tape I ever 
received was a reel of 201 1-inch that had absorbed so much moisture it 
had extruded through the slot in the hub sending a bump an inch into the 
tape pack. That recording of John Allan Cameron (his first) was salvaged 
partly through my efforts and substantially polished by the flying 
fingers of Paul MacDonald in covering each individual blurp.

Can we see if we can come up with enough data about baking times that we 
can better understand this increase that is not uniform?

Thanks!

Richard

-- 
Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada                             647 479 2800
http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.