[ Ref. Ellen E. Thompsen in 170612 MMDigest ]

Ellen,  I had a to repair a number of 125 style rolls.  Many were
missing leaders and had been poorly spliced.

You are fortunate that the old tape is falling off.  It can be removed
carefully with a sharp razor blade, patience, and a little acetone.
For taping, I use an archival acid free tape.  Lineco makes a full line
of this product.  It comes in different widths; do buy several different
widths as this really helps.

For missing leaders, I use a lightweight acid-free artist paper,
available in tablet form from hobby places.  It is about 30" long, so
it's plenty long enough to make a leader.  To attach the roll to the
spool, I use a small piece of the same tape.  Place a small piece near
the center of the paper and attach as near as possible to the center
of the spool.  Don't press tightly while lining up the edges.  Wrap
around loosely onto the spool one or two turns, then pull tight.
It works for me.

Many rolls I got had badly damaged tunes, particularly the first one.
At some time during the rolls life, sections must have torn.  The owner
simply cut out the torn section and then taped the roll back together
with no concern for music content.  Many people probably would not
notice.

If you have a section so badly damaged, try to find musically the
beginning and ending of sections not damaged.  Parts are repeated over
and over on these rolls, so you should be able to hear the different
parts: chorus, refrain, bridge, etc.  Once you find the last good part
before the ruined section, cut it off a little long.  Now match and
tape the ending of this section to the beginning of the next "good"
section, keeping the rhythm constant.

A help here is to look at the bass drum hole.  Using a ruler, you can
measure the distance between beats.  Keep this constant between the
two sections.

Once you figure out exactly where to make the joint, lay the good
section over the old, keeping the edges square, and with a ruler and
razor blade, cut through both pieces of paper at the same time.  If you
can, cut at an angle, not 90 degrees straight across.  This will make
both edges of the soon to be taped section an exact match even if your
razor moves out of line slightly.

I know what I just wrote seems complicated, and for the musically
challenged will be.  But essentially you want to keep the beat (1,2,3,4
- 1,2,3,4 - etc) constant.  Again, I am only referring to sections so
mangled that you can't fix it, or that has been poorly "fixed" in the
past.  Feel free to contact me about this.

Good luck in your repairs.  It is time consuming to do it correctly,
but you will rewarded in the end with fine sounding rolls.

Jim Quashnock