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ITC Delta head alignment tools needed

P

PirateJohnny

Looks like I'm another one of those who has a home retro radio studio. I've picked up some ITC Delta single decks from various sources. I missed a chance at the alignment tools. Does anyone have some they don't need anymore?
 
Seems all I used was an Allen wrench and a small adjustable wrench IIRC.
 
I think he is looking for the ITC head high gage. It was a piece of Metal that would line up with the head as part of the alignment procedure after replacing the tape heads.
 
I have about a thousand of the simple little head height gauges that Tapecaster used to throw in with their machines. I bought the entire parts inventory about 16 years ago. Send me a dollar for postage and you can have one. All it'll do is help you put the head at the right height. Alignment is up to your allen wrench and your ear or your meter.
 
xmtrland said:
I think he is looking for the ITC head high gage. It was a piece of Metal that would line up with the head as part of the alignment procedure after replacing the tape heads.
Click to expand...
My bad...I'd forgotten all about them.
 
I have to look through the "junk bin" at one of my client stations... I'm pretty sure that some of the tools are there, as well as the ITC alignment cart.

I had also forgotten about cart machines and the associated tools to maintain them. I really don't miss them at all from an engineering standpoint. But being on the air, there was something fun about banging the cart into the machine with 3 seconds to go on the last element, and having everything in front of you with the big colorful labels we had on things.
 
My ears are a nice phase-meter :p

If there was no material sources like you're getting here, a solution coud be getting the nab standard gauge measures and go to a shop to have it machined on aluminium...
 
Thanks for all the responses. I spent many years banging carts into the machines with three seconds left. There were so many things I've wanted to do in my life but I had to pick and choose. I ended up DJing instead of engineering. Now that everybody is going digital, computer, satellite, etc., I can build the home vintage radio studio I've wanted since seeing Wolfman Jack in American Graffiti (in the old KRE studios) back in 1974. An ebay seller had the alignment tools I'm talking about but I missed that auction. I have the ITC manual for these decks so I'm in pretty good shape. I've found decks in three different states and none of them match, imagine that. Now to get my hands dirty.
My studio includes a BE 8S250 board, two Russco Studio Pro turntables, three Otari MX5050s, a Teac 40-4. four ITC Delta stereo decks (and four spares) with two record amps (and one spare) and an EV RE20. I also have an AKG D1000E mic, which, along with the two Russcos, were acquired from the first radio station I worked at.
 
Bill, I'll email you the dollar. (actually with paypal, I can) And after playing some of the carts that were obtained with the machines, I've realized I need an alignment cart. Out of about 60 carts, only one plays almost perfect in all four machines. But, when I record tone in one, it plays well in three of the machines and is low in one. If I'm gonna learn this obsolete art, I might as well learn it correctly.
 
PirateJohnny said:
My studio includes a BE 8S250 board, two Russco Studio Pro turntables, three Otari MX5050s, a Teac 40-4. four ITC Delta stereo decks (and four spares) with two record amps (and one spare) and an EV RE20. I also have an AKG D1000E mic, which, along with the two Russcos, were acquired from the first radio station I worked at.
Click to expand...

I'm drooling ;D
 
I once used the ITC steel items for rough setup on a re-build (probably still have somewhere in the warehouse) but switched to a simple method of using pink noise with one channel out of polarity and watching for best mono summed cancellation on an RTA. There used to be some good test tapes out there you could use as the starting reference before you did the record setup with a pink noise generator.
 
I just picked up a stereo reference cart on eBay for $30. The out of phase cancellation tip is a good one, especially if you don't have a scope.
 
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