>I take it that you company do not use these model 3599 cleaning machine?
Dave - True, we do not. In the dim past I recall seeing cleaning machines for open reel tapes, with a supply of special razor blades for scraping gunk off the oxide surface of the tape as it sped by. Such external cleaning measures were certainly appropriate in those days, where operators touched the surface of the media and the tape was very much more open to the environment. These days, all removeable media remains at least somewhat exposed to the atmosphere, but contact through handling is virtually non-existent, and so the need for such externalized cleaning is dubious. The real value of a device such as the Bow Industries "3599", in my experience, is in detecting and reporting anomalies in the tape: wrinkles, creases, ripples, etc., which I have seen in post mortems of failed cartridges. It is valuable to determine such without having to unreel the tape into a cardboard box, to be able to return such tapes to the manufacturer with a report telling them that their manufacturing process was stinko that day, letting defectively made tapes get out of the factory. Richard Sims, http://people.bu.edu/rbs/ADSM.QuickFacts