Seeing as how a baking only lasts a short period of time, you'd best get it baked and transfered, baked close to home so you can do the transfer immediately, or do it yourself.

I use an American Harvester food dehydration oven. Set it at 120 degrees, bake for 4-8 hours depending on the reel. There are lots of good sets of instructions and information online for baking.

--Ben

Yes I own, and have used the American Harvester on NUMEROUS (100s) tapes.

BUT......You must bake ONLY FOR THE RIGHT REASON.
STICKY SHED, the tape will gunk up the heads, and pinch rollers with
the binder, which will remind you of rubber cement. If you bake a tape that
is shedding oxides, you WILL RUIN IT FOREVER.

A couple of tricks Ive learned:

Bake at 135 degrees

Get one of those air conditioning thermometers, with the 6 inch spike,
oe a good turkey/meat thermometer.

Let the tape cool down the same amount of time (in the dehydrator) as
you have baked it (with the dehydrator off).

Bake it tails out.

If 48 hours have passed, and you havent archived the tape, rebake it half the time once more.

It wont work on BASF, only AMPEX from the mid to late 70s.

Try this site:

http://www.tangible-technology.com/tape/baking1.html

heheh.....I"m SO glad to see everyone referencing my friend Eddie Ciletti's website. (That's where I too bought my "American Harvester" combo food-dryer/tape baker! Yummm!!! :-)

If you're looking to actually transfer tape instead of the fine art of baking, and if your'e looking for East Coast options, I'd completely, totally recommend http://www.sonicraft.com in Freehold, NJ. (Tell Steve I sent you.)

They do it all; tape baking & as soon as it's done, they'll transfer it any way you like: DVD-ROM, hard drive, etc. They've done a couple projects for me now, and I can't recommend them highly enough.

The problem with baking is that you need to do the transfer ASAP after the bake/cooling process. I'm told it really only lasts a few days, perhaps hours, at best, and then the sticky-thang creeps back in again.

Good luck with it, whatever you do. 8-)

heheh.....I"m SO glad to see everyone referencing my friend Eddie Ciletti's website. (That's where I too bought my "American Harvester" combo food-dryer/tape baker! Yummm!!!

Yes, Eddie's site was the contributing factor into buying the American Harvester Dehydrator!!!!

And I gotta tell you, its still THE safest way to dry out sticky shed.
Been doing it for 3 years now. Ill try the dried bananas soon. :shock: