"Toy" reel-reel tape recorders

[Phil G4SPZ]

This thread https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...730#post382730 prompted me to wonder if anyone else finds these capstan-less rim-drive things fascinating. Judging by this website http://www.radiophile.com/recorder.htm I'm not the only one...

As a boy I had a Honeytone, a National (or something similar) and I still have my favourite, still working, a Miny. The Honeytone mechanism with its fixed motor and sliding idler wheel never seemed to produce a steady speed, and the National had a single tilting motor with double-ended shafts driving against the underside of the spool turntables, which again provided very poor speed regulation. Both machines had, from memory, permanent-magnet erase.

The Miny, by contrast, has twin motors which pivot in and out of contact with the edge of the hub rim-drive wheel, plus a variable speed control to compensate for battery ageing. It also has a proper erase head, with DC bias, and a pause control. You see these machines for sale quite frequently at the NVCF. This machine formed my sole means of taping pop music from the Light Programme, and I still have a few historic off-air recordings from the pirate station era.

Over the years the Miny had a busy life and even did duty as a headphone amplifier for my mobile disco later. Its only major repair has been a replacement playback motor, salvaged from a smashed tape recorder of similar design but different make.

The performance is barely adequate for music, wow being present most of the time, poor signal-noise ratio and an upper frequency limit around 4kHz I guess! But a bit of nostalgic fun nonetheless.

Phil

[Steve_P]

I've got a few, and I did a repair on one here:

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ad.php?t=39058

It's amazing how mucky it had got and all it needed to get it going was a can of Servisol and some judicious bending of various bits. Rough little fingers?

Even Grundig got in on the act with the TK1.

These things vary in quality and some were bought for use as Dictaphones. Many take 2 batteries, one for the electronics and one for the motor. The twain never meet as it were.

Cheers,

Steve P.

[ricard]

The one at the bottom of this page

http://www.butoba.net/homepage/batterytape.html

is in some sort of no mans land, as the mechanics is mostly plastic, the machine is really lightweight, yet the electronics are well made and the machine has AC bias and erase, and the motor is a Bühler with electronic speed regulation. The really weird thing is that although the machine has capstan drive, there is no flywheel! The motor drives the rubber-tired rim of a plastic 'flywheel' on the capstan, but of course provides virtually no damping as there is no weight to it, so flutter is really bad. Hence, the machine is virtually useless for music, yet has constant speed drive and electronics that would support much better mechanics.

My grandparents once gave me an old machine of Japanese origin, it had capstan drive and a real flywheel (even sported two speeds with a capstan sleeve), but had DC bias and a DC erase head, recordings on it always sounded really noisy and distorted. In this case, a relative small investment in the form of an additional oscillator coil would have yielded the possibility of running the output transistors as an oscillator for AC bias for much improved quality.

The old Grundig Stenorettes were rim drive, but driven from a Papst motor with external rotor, hence there was actually a flywheel in the machine, but smooth running got sligthly spoiled by the rest of the drive chain. I seem to remember them being fairly ok though, with a large-diameter take up reel so that the speed didn't vary too much across the reel. As a matter of fact I think I measured the speed to be pretty close to 1 7/8 when the take up reel was empty, interesting that they bothered to get the speed so close when it wasn't a constant speed drive anyway.

/Ricard

[ben]

I had a few very cheap ones (Crown, I think - looked like this ) picked up at jumble sales as a kid - one grey, one navy blue, with single rotary control knob and a volume control. Truly atrocious, but fun!
There are far better portables out there, at least the Philips EL RK5L (not sure about model ), but only has 1 7/8.

Also the late 60s japanese portables by sanyo, aiwa and panasonic were pretty good performeers, compared to the rim drive lot. Most offered 3 3/4 ips by using a capstan sleeve.

I have just repaired a small National machine of this era, will post up some pics in due course.

[brenellic2000]

Don't forget we Brits!

There was an 3" 'Arrow' developed by Alec Tutchings in 1960/61 which had a cast-alloy deck, German rim drive motor and Plessey components. It was the size of plastic lunch box and was intended more as an office note taking machine, I guess, as it had no speaker. I had one, once, but it was short lived design. I have a grotty photo somewhere.

Barry

[SteveCG]

Steve P,

I had a TK1 for many years - it was indeed a permanent magnet erase head machine, but the sound recording quality was acceptable (AC bias). I no longer have it but I still have some 3 inch spools with recordings from the early/mid 60s. Off memory, I think it outperformed a Philips 3 inch spool model (spools on top of an upright unit) - but others with more recent experience of them may correct me!

[Phil G4SPZ]

Originally Posted by ben

...There are far better portables out there, at least the Philips... but only has 1 7/8...

I agree, the Philips is a 'proper' tape recorder and was capable of passable reproduction of music using good quality tape. However I was interested in members' opinions on cheap rim-drive 'toy' machines.

Ricard mentions the Stenorette. My Dad used one at home to dictate reports, and I was always amazed by the terrific torque developed by the take-up reel, quite in excess of what would be expected. I guess the aim was to compensate for the irregular pay-out of the single-spool cassette. But again, this was a professional machine no doubt costing a lot, and in a different league.

I've found this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZsFHb03quE to a video featuring Miny machines, and I think these were the earlier model to the one I own. I attach a picture of mine, playing some 1930s dance music! Flutter isn't audible, but wow - the wow. It can be minimised by always using the same take-up reel, and ensuring that the spring clip engages with the same 120-degree-spaced slot on the reel. This machine could accommodate 3 1/4" reels - anyone remember them or got some?

Phil

[ben]

Originally Posted by Phil G4SPZ

these are the 'crown' badged ones ones I had and posted a link to in post 4 above.

[Phil G4SPZ]

Yes indeed, sorry for the duplication I came across the YouTube video independently whilst searching for "Miny".

[Techman]

I posted about one that I've had from new, the Saturn, post #11 on the thread on the link below..........
https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ghlight=saturn

[camtechman]

Oh such sweet memories!

Somewhere, around the age of 12 (1959), I bought one of these "toy" recorders (Mail Order) from the Headquarters & General Supplies Ltd in Coldharbour Lane, London SE5 (othewise known as H&G). If my memory is correct, I paid around 8 Guineas for it.

It came in a printed box and inside was a strange white, packing material.....Yep, we later knew it as Expanded Polystyrene !!!!

The model was an International A4411 but it was also badged under different names later on.

Imagine a 12 year old's eyes popping out on stalks when it arrived 2 days before Xmas and how I was the most popular kid at school when I took in in, after the holidays!

It was disposed of some years later, probably swapped for stamps, beer bottle labels or matchbox labels (as I became more interested in them instead) but a few years back, as I passed 60 years of age and nostalgia kicked in, I bought one, in pefect cosmetic condition on Ebay.

However, it had the same fault as my original one developed.....battery corrosion to the U11 battery contact assembly but I made a new one from parts.

The one from Ebay even came with all it's original ephemera; Instruction Book, Disclaimer Leaflet & 2 Small Printed Paper Inserts. One of the inserts offered the purchase of a supplementary Low Impedance Earphone accessory at the princely price of 7/6d and the other offering to replace the supplied batteries if they arrived exhausted.

See pics below.

[Lucien Nunes]

One day I would like to find a decent example of the 'Junior Corder'. This was a rim-drive type with a single tilting 3V motor, PM erase and not much else. Technically it was pure junk but I agree these things are interesting from a historic standpoint. Perhaps you might find the tale of my original one amusing...

At eight or nine years old I got one from a jumble sale. It wasn't my first recorder, as I had a Philips EL3302 cassette, but the Junior corder was fodder for experiments in a way that the good, working Philips was not. Its limited performance soon became tiresome and eventually it was lent to a friend, for some purpose he would not reveal. When it was returned months later, I was alarmed to find Highly Salacious Material recorded on the tape. Not trusting the PM erase I hastily snatched the reel off the machine and stowed them in separate locations, while trying to devise a failsafe way to destroy the recording. In fact the tape and recorder were never re-united - the latter was eventually dismantled, its amplifier (such as it was) used as the front end of a kind of PA amp, and the motor for something else. The reel of tape slipped quietly under the radar.

In the meantime, age 10, I had taken ownership of the family TK18 and started learning to edit. Stock was got from jumble sales and finely chopped; there was always a need for more blank tape. During a sort out of the loft, dad proffered a couple of 3" reels with the suggestion that we should check there was no archival family material on them before I re-used them. Alarm bells immediately started ringing as either one could have been from the Junior Corder. As I duly fetched the TK18 my hope was that the Highly Salacious Material would be at such an odd tape speed it would be immediately recognisable as such when played at 3-3/4. Playback could then be stopped before anything incriminating issued intelligbly from the speaker, followed by an explanation that I knew it to be from a toy machine and ideal for re-use. As it turned out, both reels both contained interesting family material, which survives to this day.

There was no mistaking the reel from the Junior Corder when it finally surfaced. In my haste to get it off the machine, I had taken the reel-table with it! It was erased on whatever deck I was using by then, before being pulled off the reel and binned. Nearly 30 years later, all that survives is the motor, and a regret that I never listened to the remainder of the Highly Salacious Material.

Lucien

[julie_m]

Isn't any tape recorder without separate record and playback heads a toy?

I used to have a "Nobility" battery powered, spool-driven tape recorder. It had a captive microphone, no way of getting a signal in or out, no fast forward and one head (erase was by means of a swivelling permanent magnet). Quality was dire, but I suppose it was impressive in a way just for showing (1) what could be done with just a few transistors and (2) how plastic mouldings could successfully be used in place of machined metal parts.

I think the machine got chucked out by my parents when I left home to go to university

[Phil G4SPZ]

Some lovely stories! Thanks for everyone's contributions so far. Coincidentally, there's a thread currently running about transcribing recordings made on rim-drive tape recorders here: https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ad.php?t=56863

As to whether a combined record/replay head condemns a machine to 'toy' status, I doubt it - I think the categories of reel-reel recorder are probably "toy", "domestic", "semi-professional" and "professional" with maybe a sub-category of "covert" or "dictation". My OP was about rim-drive toy machines, and I think that a Stenorette, despite being akin to rim-drive, definitely isn't a toy, but I'm pleased that this thread has attracted a lot of interesting posts and unlocked plenty of pleasant memories. I'd just love to know... what was the Highly Salacious Material?

[Lucien Nunes]

I don't really know Phil, as I didn't listen to much of it. The first few sentences were all I needed to hear in order to realise that whatever it was, it probably should have been erased by whoever recorded it before giving it back. But I was very young, so it might not actually have been particularly obscene.

I agree with your categorisation of recorders - the 'toy' class mostly contains machines immediately recognisable as such, due to one or more extreme economy measures (such as rim drive or PM erase) as well as generally cheap execution. Conversely there were cheap domestic recorders, certainly in the cassette era, that worked the way a tape recorder should but were cheaply made. Likewise there were well-made recorders that used some kind of shortcut, such as the capstan-less Stenorette.

The boundaries get much more blurred once you start trying to decide where the B77 sits. In The 'covert' category lives one of my favourite little open-reel decks that is in every sense the antithesis of the toy recorder: the Nagra SN.

Lucien