Valuable Busted Cassettes

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 5 Jan 2011 5:03 pm

I have many cassettes that that have seen better days. Some, although not tape-deteriation-wise, have big problems.

MAINLY - the tape has broken - off the central windup/feed axis reels.

Is there any folk remedy to resolve this? Is there a Hi-tech remedy? Good stuff on these tapes. Haven't been heard in years.

I have many more.

Here is what I'm up against.

Thanks friends and neighbors. All help will be mucho appreciato.

Bent Romnes · Post by **Bent Romnes** » 5 Jan 2011 7:12 pm

Chip, It looks like just a broken tape, right?
Just do the old splice method. after you are sure the tape is routed properly in the cassette, overlap the ends slightly and cut them with a razor blade on a 45 degree angle then, with the ends butted together, use a piece of scotch tape cut to exact width and 3/4" long, tape together on the side that doesn't have the sound on it.
This won't last forever. Get those suckers transferred to CD ASAP!

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 5 Jan 2011 7:27 pm

Bent,

Thanks for your input.

The Jeff Neuman tape is a bit more serious. It's dangling out there in the wind.

All my old tapes need to go in for some re-grooving.

I'm willing to pay to have some professional folks do this the right way.

Thanks again Bent.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 6 Jan 2011 4:58 am

the bigger problem is the tape is OLD and WORN, close to breaking at any point...really fragile as you already know

but..

There is somewhere out there a cassette repair kit with the splicer and tape , all that stuff. Once you get it repaired run the cassette and record it to a digital source right away...the tape cannot be made better..it will keep breaking... Fix the cassette, hold your breath and record it to the new platform, PC or MP3 whatever.

http://cgi.ebay.com/BASF-Hobby-Box-Audi ... 27b7b94ba0

http://support.radioshack.com/support_a ... /64637.pdf

http://askville.amazon.com/repair-reloa ... Id=5071753

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 6 Jan 2011 11:13 am

Thanks Tony for those links. Very helpful.

That is exactly what I had in mind. Once repaired, run them through once and get it them on the HDD.

These have been kicking around for years in disrepair; I couldn't just heave them out. Was just waiting for the right time to do something about them.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 6 Jan 2011 2:07 pm

Chip Fossa wrote: Was just waiting for the right time to do something about them.

Well stand in line, I did the same thing.. 'cept I waited too long on some of them. I did mange to transfer the majority..but to be honest, while transferring some I was scratching my head wondering why I was transferring them...

Last year I also ran out and bought a reel to reel recorder ( craigs list ) and transferred all my old reel tapes to the PC...

Now I got this big Teac 10" stereo reel to reel player that I don't want to part with and it weighs too much to keep moving it around...so now I have a whole new problem !

I guess the world is not flat !

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 7 Jan 2011 4:53 am

Even with putting them on your hard drive, burn them to a CD or DVD. Hard drives do fail, and at a very bad time.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 7 Jan 2011 5:34 am

Thanks Richard, I meant to say:... to then put them on a CD, too.

Tony, stand in line, too. I also have a mint condition TEAC 4-track w/symul-sync. It's really a work of art. Even though it weighs a ton, I could never part with it. TEAC sure didn't cut any corners when they made this unit.