ferriteman
12-01-2008, 04:33 PM
After reading Des' tutorial, I finally went ahead and loaded my first pancake. I have to admit, I was a bit intimidated by it, having this vision of 2500 ft of expensive tape landing on the floor...$40 down the drain. But Des' tutorial gave me the inspiration here.
Last week I picked up 4 pancakes of RMG '911 series tape, thinking I'd load them on to some older reels that I bought used...these tapes with reels are almost $80 here locally. So loading pancakes on to old reels is cheaper. The first one to load was loaded onto an used empty 911 reel. I have a couple of old empty Ampex 456 reels, I figure I will load the others on these Ampex reels as RMG 911-series tape is listed as the "equivalent" to Ampex/Quantegy 456 tape. Not sure what "equivalent" means though.
I have only used RMG 900 tape so far...meant to get more of this tape, but the place I get it from was temporarily "out of stock" so I went with the 911 series.
One thing about this loading of pancakes...it has definetely confirmed my belief that the day that the blasted, infernal, "phillips" fastener disappears from the face of the earth can't come too soon! Fiddling with a philliips head screw & screwdriver from below while holding the reel AND the flathead screwdriver from the top is a PITA. I would be so much easier with a Robertson or Allen head screw - you can hold the fastener WITH the screwdriver itself. Why industry continues to use phillips-headed screws I will never know!
Anyway...thanks Des, wouldn't have done it without your tutorial!
*reelspin*
Last week I picked up 4 pancakes of RMG '911 series tape, thinking I'd load them on to some older reels that I bought used...these tapes with reels are almost $80 here locally. So loading pancakes on to old reels is cheaper. The first one to load was loaded onto an used empty 911 reel. I have a couple of old empty Ampex 456 reels, I figure I will load the others on these Ampex reels as RMG 911-series tape is listed as the "equivalent" to Ampex/Quantegy 456 tape. Not sure what "equivalent" means though.
I have only used RMG 900 tape so far...meant to get more of this tape, but the place I get it from was temporarily "out of stock" so I went with the 911 series.
One thing about this loading of pancakes...it has definetely confirmed my belief that the day that the blasted, infernal, "phillips" fastener disappears from the face of the earth can't come too soon! Fiddling with a philliips head screw & screwdriver from below while holding the reel AND the flathead screwdriver from the top is a PITA. I would be so much easier with a Robertson or Allen head screw - you can hold the fastener WITH the screwdriver itself. Why industry continues to use phillips-headed screws I will never know!
Anyway...thanks Des, wouldn't have done it without your tutorial!
*reelspin*