It's less than ideal but find some 'new' or still sealed QIC 1G tapes (or higher capacity) and sacrifice one for the band. 1G and higher density tapes aren't anywhere near as old, and the bands are the same, so I use them to reband older more critical tapes to read them. QIC-150 tape bands are almost all trash at this point, they are so old and dry. I like the idea of boiling them, I may try that on some of them, but here for archiving tapes, I have a couple of DC9120 carts that I've pulled the spools out of, saved the band and shell and everything, and I'll "swap in" any reels from a tape I need to archive, pop the band on, read it, and then pull the spools back out. Works well for me for a few dozen tapes so far.
I've had some short-term success with Plastibands. You can't "leave them" in the cartridge for a long time, they stretch out and stay stretched, so they are not permanent replacements but in a pinch (install, read, replace) they work ok sometimes. They are not manufactured with any real quality control so the tension even from the same sizes is not enough to reliably use as QIC replacements. Joe > On Mar 28, 2026, at 10:05 PM, Alan Perry via cctalk <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Hi all, > > I am looking for advice on some problems that I am observing trying to read > QIC tapes using an Archive Viper. > > If you are unfamiliar with QIC tapes, tape transport is done through a single > roller that moves a plastic band in tension with the outside of a portion of > the tape on the reels. Over time, the band will break. > > A long time ago, I bought a bunch of the green plastibands to use as > replacement bands. Later I bought a bunch of the clear ones. I was able to > image some tapes with the plastiband replacement but not all (but rewind and > retension works almost every time). Until today, I don't think I ever tried > the clear ones after I bought a bag. > > I am preparing for a VCF and need the contents off of some of the tapes that > I have, so I got out the driver and tapes. However, I have been unable to > read anything from the them. The tape will jam up. It seems like what is > happening is that plastiband is not providing enough tension to move the tape > when reading. The tape loses tension and I see it gather instead of moving > along. Sometimes the tape feels stuck to the posts that turn the tape to be > parallel with the heads. > > I also tried a clear band for the first time and the tension with that seems > too tight. > > What am I doing wrong? > > alan > >
