BACKGROUND:
Oh my! While working through yet more reel to reel related spare parts due to an enquiry that I received, I have found some more odd little bits and pieces from our old R2R tape machines. Most of the parts are 'mundane' i.e not exciting items such as head assemblies, VU meters or the motors (they all found new machines to live in yonks ago) but some of these less interesting components that I will be listing could be of benefit to others who have the specific machines 'lying around' waiting for a spare part (or two or three ...)
A lot of tape has moved across the heads since I last looked into these very old classic R2R machines so I dug out a manual and I am confident that I have identified the component correctly, based on the visual appearance and comparing to the manual. Usually I would have made notes about every single component I have salvaged but unfortunately in this case I found a bag of goodies simply marked as "OTARI 5050" - not much help some 30 years later!
Why do you bother Russ? (I hear you wondering out loud)
I am very much "into" sustainability and a complete tape machine represents a LOT of embedded energy and to waste that embedded energy is a very bad thing, even worse is to bury it in landfill and subsequently poison our environment!
What is embedded energy?
Embedded energy is a measurement of the total energy that was used to create a component, a module or a complete piece of equipment originally.
HERE is some more information about Ee
So my motivation is 'saving things' where they may be old but still useful or possibly be repurposed.
Rewind ...
Back to this component I am offering and where it came from (I love a good story, don't you?) ...
Go back in time, in the 1990's our Australian Broadcasting Corporation was 'forced' by Federal Government funding decisions to 'clear out the cupboards' of their old, obsolete equipment.
Masses of fantastic high quality equipment used in the broadcast industry suddenly became available in the Australian market place through auction houses such as Pickles.
Masses and masses of gear of all types and what's even better, there was often a friendly ABC engineer on hand who could answer techie questions about the gear being offered. Not only that, much of the equipment had original full Service manuals - to me this was like 'techie heaven!"
Although it was hard to constrain ourselves, the bidding was stupidly low and many took advantage of getting great gear for "a song"
I am not a trader in such things but I ran an audio post production facility for many years and we worked with client's source material using 1/4", 1" and 2" tape formats so just imagine my glee when I saw this wonderful array of OTARI's and STUDER's being offered (by the truckload and with all the trimmings such as the aluminium reels and original Studer NAB hubs - Wow!) from just A$10 a pop! OMG!
I bought a LOT of those machines in all the different tape formats and by mix n matching, produced my 'dream machines' by taking parts that needed servicing from other machines - ending up with some "perfect" OTARI's and more importantly STUDER 807, 810 & 820's!
In my opinion, the STUDER is a superior machine but the OTARI is good too, and it was originally a cheaper machine to purchase than the STUDER. OTARI's were often used for manual editing (cut n splice) while the STUDER's suited studio recording much more.
Any excess STUDER gear went overseas back to Germany (they were scrambling for the spare parts) and also the OTARI 'leftovers' went the same way (but to Japan) HOWEVER today I have found a few more bits and pieces from the OTARI MX5050 BII specifically.
Please don't ask if I have a complete, working machine - I don't because all the "good stuff" left home quite some time ago (last century in fact! late 1990's) - now there are just a few parts that I am hoping someone can make use of ...
If this component from the MX5050 BII/III machine isn't what you are looking for ... try searching HERE to see the other components that may still be available
Here are the details of this spare part from an OTARI BII
OTARI (Japan) - Reel Drive Nail (1)
Part offered:Reel Drive Nail MK0E038
Material: Diecast metal of some kind (not ferrous)
This is basically a metal disc measuring 21.75mm OD with a 8.1mm diameter centre hole. Three "nails" on one side (the other side is flat) and three 3.6mm ID countersunk holes for securing bolts - I am not supplying the bolts.
Here is a location photograph of this component, extracted from the manual (Parts List 4, Reel Assembly)
SPARE PART ONLY
COSMETIC CONDITION:
USED
CLEAN
NO physical damage to the component at all.
I have now placed this reel drive nail component into a sealed clear plastic packet and it now sits patiently looking forward to "being one" with another MX5050 machine.
SPECIAL NOTE: I would have expected that I would have had at least two of these (two per machine) but so far I have not find any others ... the search continues
