Mellotronists

In a message dated 6/29/2004 6:37:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
jkorb@... writes:

> With the Trons I've owned/serviced, I carefully check the entire 
> tape path for the slightest burrs/dirt, etc. Clean,polish is the rule. 
> Small wrinkles on the tape can be carefully removed with 
> clothes-iron on LOWEST position and with GENTLE  pressure atop 
> soft fabric surface. I tried this on an orig. "BBS"  scrap tape 
> and it worked fine ! I don't think this will work on newer tapes 
> with matte and/or coloured surfaces. 
> 
> 

Recently, I picked up a couple of old reel to reel recorders tp play around 
with.  Seems that everyone is going digital these days, and you can find these 
things for not much money.  As I read up on the maintenance for these, I'm 
struck by the similarity to our mellotron maintenance techniques.  Clean and 
demag the heads, lube and clean the pinch rollers, *keep the tape path clean*.  
Sound familliar?  I have to admit, when I read "keep the tape path clean" as 
part of the routine maintenance after so many hours of use, I started to shudder, 
thinking about my two mellotrons.  There is much more "tape path" with 35 
tapes and heads, pinch rollers, etc.  I don't know many of us who regularly clean 
the tape path of our entire mellotron after a set number of hours of use (or 
non-use).  With me, it's more like I go in to fix a few notes that are 
starting to sound bad for one reason or another.  I suppose that the tape path of the 
entire machine gets cleaned during a major restoration.  Something to think 
about, anyway.

Also, while researching about the reel to reel recorders, I came across 
something that may help us maintain our mellotrons.  There is a fluid available 
which is supposedly good for cleaning tape heads *and* pinch rollers.  Many of us 
use isopropyl alcohol to clean the heads and to also clean the dirt out of 
the pinch rollers so that they will spin.  However, the long term effects of 
isopropyl alcohol on the pinch roller rubber is probably not good.  I 've dunked 
my pinch rollers in alcohol, so that's probably going to come back to haunt me 
at some point according to what I have read.  Anyway, this new stuff is also 
supposed to be good for the rubber, brings it back to life, etc.  I've never 
tried it, but I just ordered a small quantity to test it out.  Thought I'd 
share it with the group.  It seems to be tape head / pinch roller cleaner and 
pinch roller rubber rejuvenator all in one.  Here's the link:

http://www.usrecordingmedia.com/cleanwipandm.html


There are also some other products on this web page, such as the cleaning 
wipes which are made to clean existing tapes, which may be helpful for mellotron 
and mellotron tape maintenance.  There's a much larger market for reel to reel 
tape machines than for mellotrons, so chances are that there are other 
products like these which are made for reel to reel machines which can help us 
maintain our mellotrons, since mellotron and reel to reel maintenance is so 
similar.


Ken M.
MKII #247
M400 #1217