Baking tapes?

[Hellbore]

Has anyone had experience baking VHS or Beta tapes? I have some Beta tapes from the 60's and 70's that appear to need baking because they are shedding. Fortunately they are 99% untouched since the early 80's. I tested some of our old commercial films on Beta first, since we don't care if those get damaged. Our family videos are untouched.

I would like to bake them to try and reactivate the binder. I read that a 3 hours or so at 130 to 140 degrees should do it.

However, what I read was mostly talking about other kinds of tapes, not VCR tapes. I have a couple questions that I didn't see covered.

1. Do you have to disassemble the cassette to get just the spool of tape out first, then bake? Can you just bake the tape all in one piece?

2. I know playing back the tape will just make it shed, but... I read that you shouldn't bake a tape that is wound up unevenly. My thought was to fast-forward, rewind, then fast-forward the tape to re-pack it nicely before baking, but wouldn't this operation cause too much of the shedding material to flake off? What if I used a tape rewinder, those don't have nearly as many rollers and gadgets coming in contact with the tape, right?

I was thinking maybe a dedicated tape rewinding machine that also has a fast-forward setting... What do you think? My only concern there is that I had a bad experience once with a tape rewinder that broke tapes. It would get to the end, finish rewinding, then apply to much force and break the tape.

Any suggestions?

[redwudz]

Where did you get that information on 'baking'? I would guess at 140F most of the cassette would melt, probably the tape along with it. Maybe not melt, but you would risk distortion of the cassette. My guess is that some sort of heat fusing machine would be used, instead of just heating the tape. I forsee a lot of problems with this idea.

If your tapes need that sort of restoration, probably best left to a professional restoration company.

[Shadow57]

edit

[Marvingj]

This is destruction at hand, Don't Do it!!! I also have some swamp land in Florida that has Gold on it , I'll sell it to you at a low price 1 million dollars a 1/10 of a acre. Its a great deal! Please contact me so as you can because I want make you rich!!!! HEEhEEhEe

[Hellbore]

Where did you get that information on 'baking'? I would guess at 140F most of the cassette would melt, probably the tape along with it. Maybe not melt, but you would risk distortion of the cassette. My guess is that some sort of heat fusing machine would be used, instead of just heating the tape. I forsee a lot of problems with this idea.

If your tapes need that sort of restoration, probably best left to a professional restoration company.

What I don't get is, if you guys know less about baking tapes than I do, why are you offering advice? No offense, but seriously...

[Hellbore]

This is destruction at hand, Don't Do it!!! I also have some swamp land in Florida that has Gold on it , I'll sell it to you at a low price 1 million dollars a 1/10 of a acre. Its a great deal! Please contact me so as you can because I want make you rich!!!! HEEhEEhEe

You guys are nuts... Apparently you guys aren't as knowledgeable as I thought!!!

Next wacky guy who wants to post "DONT BAKE UR TAPES UL KILL EM" first please read the links someone already kindly supplied, or this one:

http://www.tangible-technology.com/tape/baking1.html

[Marvingj]

http://www.tangible-technology.com/tape/baking1.html


I Also got a Pork N Bean with Sour Cabbage receipe . It also includes vhs & Beta tapes. Taste really good after you Barf!!!! Just to let you I Care.. Boom- Boom!!! The Madd Bomber....

[Dasun]

Baking is a valid emergency procedure if a tape is exhibiting major shedding problems - as a quick Google search will reveal - try www.videointerchange.com/tape.htm for some basic info, see excerpt below. Yes you would need to remove tapes from cassette shells, and yes you will need to practise on tapes you can afford to loose to get enough experience to try the experiment on someting more valuable. Once baked a tape is only good for a couple of playbacks, try everything else before baking.

Now I know you do not have Beta tapes from the late 1960's but you may have some from around the mid 1970's as that is when the format was released. Late 60's tapes are reel to reel jobs and maybe in a number of formats - EIAJ for example - and players for them are hard to find.

...
Oxide shedding is a serious problem, as there is no known technique for repairing the malady (at least without destroying the recording in the process). However, tape baking can make it's effects less pronounced (only if caught in the very early stages before separation is visually evident) by reducing the stickiness and subsequent drag on the tape. Tape re-lubing can also often get a tape with a weakened binder layer to play without shedding off the oxide, just long enough for the transfer to be made.
...

[lordsmurf]

I've heard of this, but it's mostly voodoo. Really weird process that may not work at all. It also sounds like yours are too far dead if they're already shedding.

[Hellbore]

Well I will have to see, hopefully my tapes aren't shedding too bad, maybe it was just the one I looked at, maybe the others aren't shedding.

They have been in Arizona the whole time and it's usually very arid here, dry air. Water absorption is supposed to be the main cause of shedding so hopefully it won't be a big problem.

[Jester700]

It's not voodoo WRT reel-to-reel audio tapes. Plenty of early 70's Ampex had this problem, and lots of people baked them. I even had a tape from about 1989 that 12 years later was shedding like a husky in springtime (I hadn't stored it well). If I had any material on it I cared about, I'd have baked it. As it was, I looked into it a bit and let it go.

As for video, I don't know how widespread the problem is, but tapes use some similar technology, so...

[housepig]

I've heard of this, but it's mostly voodoo. Really weird process that may not work at all. It also sounds like yours are too far dead if they're already shedding.

I know some audio people who have successfully done it - it's one of those last resort, "I can't play it anyway, so it's worth a try" things. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

there are so many variables - how far gone is the tape? what kind of tape? how rough was it's life before it started shedding? - that it is more of an art (or voodoo) than science.

[BJ_M]

it is done a lot actually for old audio tapes -- i dont know anything about doing it for video as the base (what the tape is made of) is completely different ...


but i do know lots is done for audio ..

[Hellbore]

it is done a lot actually for old audio tapes -- i dont know anything about doing it for video as the base (what the tape is made of) is completely different ...

No it's not different... Guys please read the links!!

I'm sorry I asked... Can I delete this thread? LOL...

[BJ_M]

much of the tapes we had done had mylar base (audio) ,


video tape uses polyester base.

polyester base will warp first before mylar (though polyester is a better base overall)



good info here on it and how to do it .


http://www.tiguersound.com/Studio_Information/TapeBake.html

[the * dude]

hum?? too young to encounter this problem yet my oldest tape is ~10yrs old..... saw the link could it be a hoax???

may work for audio tapes cause designed to be more robust, ever kept a vhs tape in your pocket ??? with out a case ???

135F, sound high, wots that in C, well you don the chefs hat, leave the tapes over your home radiator for a couple of days, worst case nothing happens????

theory better to heat slowly then melt them!!!!!

i'm no expert this is just a gues but is wot i'd do in your case, bake it last measure, heck why not steam, use one of those nu fangled george forman grill, and make a lo-fat version its all good.

come to think of it i'd better dust off my box of vhs & check in case, good thing i've onl had my dvd for only 3yrs!!!

[BJ_M]

135F is very low heat - very very low

[junkmalle]

135F ~ 57C

[NamPla]

Microwave oven job. 8)

EDIT: How much for the steak knives?

[the * dude]

ahhh!

maybe baking isn't the right word to use then????

[the * dude]

Microwave oven job.

EDIT: How much for the steak knives?


hum bung a fork too

[dvd3500]

Microwave oven job.

I once pulled a Twix out of the freezer and decided to dethaw it in the microwave.... still in the wrapper.
The wrapper DESINTEGRATED and the Twix stayed frozen!

[HatchetMan]

135F is very low heat - very very low

That's only about 10 degrees hotter than AZ in the summer
Of course, if you were to leave that tape in the car w/ the windows rolled up, it would melt in no time. 8) I once melted my boom box that way, left it in the exposed hatch of my old camaro.

[Hellbore]

Yes I know audio tapes are mylar but so are some older video tapes. The baking technique works on both kinds of tape from what I have read.

No, it isn't a hoax. This is a real thing. You guys crack me up with your incredulity...

As for steaming the tapes, that is the exact opposite of what you want to do. One major problem with tapes deteriorating with age is the moisture in the air. Steam them and you might as well set them on fire.

Same goes for microwaving them. They surely have metallic particles in the tape to hold the magnetic charges. These would react in a microwave, probably spark and burn very quickly into nothing.

If you want a really cool example of this put a CD in the microwave. You'll have a light show! Try it, it doesn't hurt your microwave, I have done it many times as a demonstration to incredulous people. I have not tried a tape yet but I'm sure it would be destroyed almost instantly.

[junkmalle]

If you want a really cool example of this put a CD in the microwave. You'll have a light show! Try it, it doesn't hurt your microwave, I have done it many times as a demonstration to incredulous people.

It stinks like hell for days though.

[HatchetMan]

If you want a really cool example of this put a CD in the microwave. You'll have a light show! Try it, it doesn't hurt your microwave, I have done it many times as a demonstration to incredulous people.

It stinks like hell for days though.

How the hell do people come up with these ideas? One day say "I wonder what would happen if we microwaved a cd dude"? Anyone use these things for food anymore? (the microwave, not the cd's)

[BJ_M]

im sure it happened the first time when someone got really stoned ...

then anything is possable

[lordsmurf]

No, it isn't a hoax. This is a real thing. You guys crack me up with your incredulity...

It's not that we don't believe you ... it's that this is a last ditch "whacky" method very similar to sticking a dead hard drive in the freezer. It's a real gamble, and it's more art/voodoo than an exact science.

You stand an equal chance (maybe even a high chance) of ending up with a puddle of black goo, and not a workable tape.