A RAPID AND NON-DESTRUCTIVE PRE-PLAYBACK TAPE DEGRADATION IDENTIFICATION METHOD

[@oldgoody1]

"Playing a tape is the currently accepted method for classifying it as degraded or not." For SSS tapes this seems bad advice. Even winding the tape off its reel directly to another reel risks, in at least severe cases, tearing the oxide layer from the base material. Instead many of us hold the reel in front of us as if a steering wheel and rotate the reel to allow the tape's start to unwind itself purely by gravity, a sensitive test to notice the slightest tendency of one tape wind to cling to the next wind. That adhesion may increase further into the reel unless the tape was last wound with a constant tension. The solution at the moment seems to be training of personnel to AVOID playing or even unspooling a tape until they are very sure it can be played or even unspooled safely.