I'm in the Manchester area - quite a long trek! - but I do have experience in copying old tapes, and access to suitable equipment.

By day I'm a public address engineer, and we still have a range of reel to reel machines in our hire inventory. Maybe we could arrange something over the Christmas break?

The Revox A77 isn't suitable, as it is a two track machine (we still have three of those!), but we also have an Akai GX400DSS which is a strange beast - it's four track auto-reverse!! Weird to watch the reels going the 'wrong' way! It is three speed - 3.75, 7 and 15 ips, and is a semi-domestic machine which will accept domestic tapes and 10 inch NABs.

I also have a Tascam TRS8 (Tascam is Teac's professional division), which is 8 track, but on half-inch tape, with built-in DBX noise reduction. I still prefer to do initial recording on open reels, converting to digital when mastering. I'm not convinced that you 'can't hear' the losses in digital sampling!! There is a 'warmth' to analogue recordings... honest!

BBC GMR (Manchester) are in the process of modernising their studios at the moment - I'm hoping that some of their old Studer machines on trolleys will be up for grabs... (Revox is to Studer as Teac is to Tascam, BTW).

Older tape recorders aren't usually belt driven, and drive belts for those that have them can usually be found quite easily - I keep a box of 'em! Belts for Teac/Tascam machines are certainly still available - I've just replaced the capstan drive belt on my 3440 with a genuine spare.

Good luck!