Gary Galo makes an excellent point here.

I keep several NAB hub reels around for this very purpose. I will 
generally load to a larger hub reel while exercising the tape. Besides, 
threading those smaller hubs is a real PITA! ;-) For the last pass when 
transferring, I will use the original reel as a take-up. This way, the 
customer gets their original reel back with a "Play Wind" on the tape.

Cheers!

Corey

Corey Bailey Audio Engineering
www.baileyzone.net

On 7/13/2019 8:09 AM, Gary A. Galo wrote:
> I can't remember if anyone commented in this in early replies to this question, but whenever I have a tape on a very small hub, I wind the tape onto a large hub 7-inch or a 10 1/2 inch reel, at least for the duration of the transfer. The amount of torque required to pull the tape off a very small hub is stressful to old tapes.