Question:  What's worse than buying 50 mint-condition, great-sounding
Ampico fox trot rolls in above-average boxes, and while playing them,
see a bit of pre-torn paper while it plays?

Answer:  Rewinding the same roll only to have it tear against the
left-hand flange.

Yikes!  Most of the 50-roll lot I just bought want to self-destruct on
rewind, the paper's just that brittle.  Having a lot of coding on the
sides doesn't exactly aid in the paper's strength integrity either.

List member and Cape Code Rebuilder Jon Page taught me to remove the left
flange, put a little tape on it's inner spool, then re-attach it so that
it returns the roll's width to it's original width plus 1/8".  This would
stop some of the tearing during rewind.  Is this the best solution for
these extra brittle rolls?

I noticed that as the roll tracks normally, the take-up spool winds the
roll a bit uneven (to keep the roll even on the tracker).  Upon rewind,
the tracker seems stationary, so the rewind roll is only able to receive
the unevenly wound paper from the take up spool, which always causes
undue wear and softening of a roll's left side (it seemed to always be
the left side that's the problem).  Is this a normal operation?  Should
the tracker be active and track during rewind as well as during play?
Any advice would be appreciated.

Karl Ellison
Ashland, Massachusetts