2021-11-08 TTT: Gary Louie -Gage Blocks for Aligning Tape Heads; John Chester: Scrape Idler Flutter

Another Audio Engineering Society Pacific Northwest Section Tea Time Topics presentations with extensive discussion, this time about analog tape recorder maintenance and repair, with an attendance list of world class experts on the subject.

Gary Louie starts off with a description and pictures of tape recorder head construction and alignment issues, and shows his methodology of using gage blocks, which come as a set of precisely machined metal measuring blocks, placed on a known flat surface such as a granite surface plate, to accurately adjust tape heads to be perpendicular to the surface plate and not tilted in any way. Much discussion elaborated on that.

John Chester showed us what a scrape flutter idler is, how to repair one, and the problems caused by aging and use that may or may not be repairable. Much discussion ensued.

Attendees included a who's who of recording machine specialists and engineers:

-Alan Garren
-Bob Olhsson
-Bob Smith
-Chris Langhart
-Chris Myring
-David Dintenfass
-Dom Monteleone
-Goran Finnberg
-Matthew Lutthans
--Ralph Sommar
-Richard Hess
-Steve Puntolillo

All contributed materially to the discussion.

The host and moderator was Dan Mortensen

3 1/4 hours of unedited video.