So today I purchased my first reel to reel machine, a Teac A-4010S from around 1970. I paid $45 for it, but it appears in decent shape. The capstan belt was in forty pieces, so I’ll have to replace that, but everything that is supposed to move does, and the reel motors and breaks work like they should. I’ll have to disassemble quite a bit to replace the belt, so I’ll clean and re-lubricate everything. The output section is working, though one channel seems a little weak, so I’ll have to sort that out. But cosmetically it looks fantastic, so I’m excited about getting it working again.
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I reckon every high school band and choir room from Tucson to tucumcari must have had some great reel to reel in the 70s. I wonder what happened to them all?
That’s a steal for that deck. That’s a good deal for a parts deck, so if you can resurrect it, you’ll be in great shape. The condition of the heads is critical as Teac no longer make them. If worn (flat surface or wide gaps) they may be able to be lapped back into shape.
I have two Teac decks myself, an A-3300-SX 2T which is a half track that plays at 15 ips and 7.5 ips, and an A-6300 which is a quarter track auto-reverse deck. I love them both.
Do you have a source for belts? The grease on the tension arms usually has to be cleaned off and replaced with lithium grease. DeOxit the crap out of every switch and try like hell to get inside the switch with the spray. You will absolutely have to lubricate the capstan motor, front and back bearings.
Good luck and congrats!
Yeah, so not everything that is supposed to move does. The left side tension arm was locked up on the shaft. The movement was the spring loose. So I finally got that disassembled, which is a major pain, and with a torch lighter and some plier finally managed to get it loose. All that dried grease just locked it up. The pinch roller doesn’t seem to have that problem though I’m going to pull everything apart, clean, and re-lube. Question though…in the videos I’ve seen, they use just regular spindle oil for the pinch roller arm shaft, but the left tension arm should use damping grease, correct? Should I use the same for both arms? I know they should move freely, but the movement should be slow from the high viscosity grease, no?
Correct. I use lithium grease. The pinch roller shaft and the capstan motor get light spindle or turbine oil. Naptha can rejuvenate the pinch roller if needed. The front bearing on the capstan motor can be tough to get to. I use some aluminum tubing with rubber tubing to connect to the spray can. You can bend it so that you can reach the oil tube in the motor.
Welcome to your latest audio rabbit hole!
Thanks. I’m definitely up for it. I’m not an engineer by training, but I’m pretty good with mechanical and electrical things. It’s the more subjective things with which I struggle. For example, I found out this weekend that I may be the world’s worst drywall fixer.
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You may want to peruse this site: http://www.tapeheads.net/
There’s a lot of info on every kind of tape machine.
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They all got sold for weed, whites, and wine.
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There’s a lot of information bouncing around in here now, but the only thing I’m able to conclude for certain is that the total value of the shit in Hudson’t garage just increased by $45.
…so, it’s up to $45 then?
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If HH is successful in his rehab, then the garage value will reduce back to baseline and the living room value will be up around $300 or so.
I was doing routine maintenance on my Crown SX-824, the best of my three open reel decks when my nephew, who was visiting, said “why do you have so much tape and why do you have three reel to reels?”. As I was reassembling parts along with the oil and head cleaner and Q-tips and degmagnitizer I replied “convenience”.
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That is fucking brilliant.
It’s like when people ask why I smoke cigars….for the health benefits.
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So, I’ve pricked on in here about my mate who owns a piece of a record label. Well someone - clearly bored and bereft of ideas during COVID lockdown - decided to make a documentary about them.
It’s 45 minutes of “fuck the man” joy. My mate as featured in the doc is Paul “the Silent Partner” Finlay which, if you’d ever met him, is ironic in the extreme. Paul don’t do quiet.
Regardless, this is fantastic…and completely bootleg (I probably shouldn’t be sharing here, so please don’t spread it further):
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I enjoyed this thoroughly. I remember meeting Paul, of course. Was he in for SXSW? I can’t remember what we did let’s see let’s see oh yeah we went to a bar and drank 700 beers. I’m pretty sure we went to some bar over near where you used to live. Wherever it was, I can’t imagine it still exists. I do recall wandering around in the parking lot of the Hobbit Cafe, and since this was years before you turned vegetarian I can’t for the life of me figure out what the hell we were doing out there.
Anyway, that was an outSTANding moviefilm, and my main takeaway is that the London anti-folk scene is privileged with an overabundance of lunatics.
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Sounds about right. The bar is now called something else and I can’t now remember what it was called then. It shared a parking lot with the Hobbit, which was just across the street from my home at the time.
The fog is lifting. Another thing I remember is Paul’s normal, tranquil speaking voice, which for me would be a full throated shout.
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His laugh will smash rocks without the need for a Weirding Module.