VWestlife, you wanna hear a heartwarming cassette story? I recently bought a 95 Lexus LS400, great shape, has a nice pioneer setup from the factory, all still intact. Found out the deck works. Well, in 2016 my mom died from cancer at age 55, I'm currently 37, so I was going through all my old tapes, and bam, i see one labeled "radio demo tape". My mom was in broadcasting. Fixed the tape and stuck it in, and wow, first time hearing my mom's voice in 6 years. Yeah, I cried. But its also so beautiful, I hear her in my Daughter, and my Nieces. Also, this dang thing sounds good if you play a good recording on it! I might have to bust out the ole deck and show the kiddos how mix tapes were made! Also, all my 30yo cassettes are winning over my 25yo cds LOL all my cds are rotting!

Here's a tip for splicing tapes - stick the bit of splicing tape on the edge of your razor and carry it like that to the splicing block. It's a bit easier to maneuver and you don't leave fingerprints on the sticky side. Learned this from a retired radio engineer.

The slide cases originated from the Columbia Record Club around 1973. They *really* cheaped out on these boxes as well as the cassettes themselves! Note that there are *no* clear plastic windows in the shells, allowing the tape to be exposed to the elements!

This takes me back to my childhood when I used to call myself a certified cassette surgeon after fixing several cassette tapes in the same way but using a pvc electrical tape 😂

"Elbow muscle" 😁😀 This is one of those rare instances that some older items were cheaply made. It's usually the other way around. I used to do that in the 80's a lot with cassettes, thanks to crappy players that liked eating them. I did it the hard way with no tools, except a screwdriver to open the cassette shell, scotch tape and super steady hands on a level surface.

I attempted to splice an explicit video tape when I was fourteen years old (1991) and it got chewed up and stuck inside my best friend's Dad's expensive Panasonic VCR! 😆 We got in so much trouble. Haha.

That 'cassette salad' brought back memories I had forgotten about cassette tumbleweeds along the side of every main road.

I don’t think I have ever clicked on a VWestlife video so early or so quickly in my life…

Ideally you want the splicing tape on the back of the tape rather than the playing side. Also when joining leader to audio tape usually it should be a straight splice and angle splices are used for joining the audio tape together.

I like these glued labels on the plastic cases, a sort of an 8-track vibe going on.

Seeing the unspooled pile of tape reminded me how often you used to see that on the side of the road.

Those Realistic/Radio Shack tape winders with "One Hand & Gear" stamped in the plastic are a godsend. I wore out my original and had to buy another on eBay. Oh, for the days when Radio Shack had neat things like this. I'd look through their catalog like it was a Christmas toy catalog!

I did the same for my parents in law which live far away in Buryatia. They do have cassettes from the 70's and 80's and they still listen to these. The storage conditions weren't great and some of the tapes did degrade badly and were snapped, so i decided, after repairing the originals to also make copies on new cassettes for them. Their cassette deck is an old soviet model, which is pretty rough when rewinding cassettes, because the auto stop mechanism is not always working correctly. So i had to use splicing tape on both sided, otherwise it would snap again.

I used to fix busted cassettes for everyone back in college so I looked for my tape splicing block after watching this. Located it and also found my old Iron Butterfly Inagadadavida tape in a snap case which had a broken leader. Fixed it and it still sounds great, unlike a lot of my CDs which got bit rot and died. Always interesting videos here so thanks for this one especially.

When I used to walk to work a lot, I would see cassette tapes strung down the highway after people would be angry that their car stereo ate them. This is definitely a great worthwhile watch, as well as your other videos. The tape actually sounds very good. I know that back in 1972 that cassette tapes haven't quite got the advancement in sound that they did in the 1980s and 1990s. I always thought that prerecorded tapes prior to 1980 didn't sound that great but yet they're probably fine if they're found. Any little mishap with a cassette can result in audio dropping out at that portion of tape. Reel to reel usually didn't have that issue. I remember this guy gave me a reel to reel tape that he recorded in 1957 of his little band he was in and the edge damage was unbelievable. The crazy thing is I didn't hear any dropouts in the recording because the tape moved fast enough and the machine flattened it out in the transport.

hurts me when i think about how many (possibly perfect) cassette tapes were thrown in the trash. Every cassette has something mystic about it. You never know whats on it and how it will sound and how long. I love looking at the mechanism work.

I used to have that exact same Emerson Nonboombox. From what I remember it was a treble Box!! I was so excited when I got it as a kid on on my birthday, then I played it and my excitement quickly faded when I heard how little bass it had. I still loved it though.

I've transplanted several old cassette tape reels into donor shells with screws. Stinks to lose the original marked shell, but it's nice to be able to save something you've had a long time and want to keep playing.

There’s a few cassettes from my mom’s childhood that my great grandfather recorded during Thanksgiving and/or Christmas in the early 70s. Same with radio broadcasts regarding the blizzard of ‘78. That’s one of the only things she has from her childhood and i hope videos like this will allow me to help restore those cassettes when needed.

I always look forward to a new VWestlife video. Nice to see the good doc perform a successful transplant surgery!

Who knew watching a guy fix a cassette tape from 50 years ago would be so interesting

Super helpful video. I have only spliced reel to reel and have a couple of cassettes that need repair. I usually run the razor blade through the splicing block at a 45 degree angle. It gives a nice clean cut.

I was just about to start fixing a 1970 Los Paraguayos cassette that I like, when I noticed that a few hours ago you had uploaded this video, and I decided to watch it first😃. The DR DCC tip was actually very useful for the job, and the cassette seams broke very neatly with that technique. I now have a working cassette, and my primitive scotch tape splice is even able to withstand the brutal force of my Aiwa's tape tensioning system that tore the tape off the leader in the first place. Thanks for the great video as always!

You're a hero for saving these survivor/veteran tapes from that time, the very beggining of their success, I loved this whole video ♥ ♥ ♥

I love how the airline joke told 50 years ago is still relevant today.

I've done this many times in old sticky tapes and I've noticed on a lot of the slip case cassettes, they surprisingly did not even have slip sheets!

11:00 You put the sticky tape on the wrong side. It could cause issues in the long run. When doing a splice you should stick it on the back of the tape, the non playing side so it does not affect the heads.

Hi VWestlife.Dealing with cassettes here for almost 50 years.. Yes I did the tape twist thing as your KZfaq friend did on those sealed cassettes which I learned years ago..Never dealt with the sticky leader issue here yet. BTW .No offence ..The tape splices should be on the back side .Not on the front "music " side. Same for 8track and reel to reel tapes. Nice to see that the splicing kits are still available..Are they still available.... BTW for those dont know who Flip Wilson was..Just search his name here on KZfaq. He was a very funny comic..

I have some Scotch 271 cassettes with the clam shell mailer cases that date back to 1967 and still play fine, as well as some Norelco cassettes from 1965 w/ no knock out tabs!!

I'm really impressed with how steady your hands are! I try doing something like that and my hands start shaking like crazy. Great video as usual.

As someone born in the 90's, I find this stuff fascinating!

Only bad thing about those phone opening kits is the metal spudgers can still damage the plastic while the plastic of the plastic spudgers is damaged easily. An alternative to them would be guitar picks. You can get them in packs of 100 and they come in all sizes and thicknesses.

I've had the tape snap on a couple from eBay after rewinding. They're pretty easy to fix, just put some scotch tape where the tape snaps off the leader.

This was riveting, vwestlife. It makes me happy to spend even just a few minutes a week with someone who shares my fascination with these tiny masterpieces of optimistic mid-century design.

I loved watching you restore that old cassette. You preserved cassette history !👍🙂❤️ I taught myself to restore many cassettes over the years.I never knew radio shack had a hand held rewinder.Boy its true ! You learn something new everyday.🙂👍Thanks for the video and keep collecting cassettes. They are so much fun to collect.I love ❤️ cassettes.

my mom got me a crosley cassette player for my birthday recently and I've been having a great time buying up cassette tapes from audio books to music im actually making some custom cover art for some. I'm glad to see their making a resurgence I've been meaning to buy a player for the past year but I figured I'd buy one that's been cleaned and had the belts replaced

Watching a repair of a 1972 cassette on my 2021 Laptop with 1978 headphones plugged into it. :)

With sticky tapes , I have found that using a Tape Hand Winder contraption , works better at loosening them up , for some reason, than fast forwarding and rewinding the cassette in a cassette deck.

That last gag was so pure :D When humor was roughless, yet expressive :D

I've already worked on old cassettes (leader tape, spring pads, etc.. the usual business) and your video is realy usefull. Thank you, mate! (next step: a video about old broken DAT? I've some... 😉)

It's always fun to play doctor when it comes to restoring old tapes... I have made some restoration projects before and it is one of the most satisfying and rewarding experiences I've had! :) Proud of my cassette tapes collection.

Tired: surgery on a grape Wired: surgery on a tape

This video re-enacted much of my childhood

I wonder why so many people use knifes, blades or screwdivers to force open plastic. You not only obviously end up scratching but making a dent on it. Always use plastic on plastic! I often use cheap pogs (milk caps) to open stuff. Not only they have a good grip, flexibility, resistance and thickness but you can also add them up (like layers) to make it thicker at a multiple points and create the right amount of pressure to separate plastic with less stress on its structure. But you will need a lot of them.

Sarah Johnson will be thrilled to know that her sassy comeback from 50 years ago has been rediscovered and forever immortalized.

I used to splice/repair my granddad cassettes when I was 7 years old! He was blind and had an enormous audiobook/recorded show collection that he used till the tape broke and then I repaired them for him.

this is genuinely one of the most satisfying videos i have ever seen

quick Tip to know what side your on. if you started rewound to side A, then spliced the new leader and fast forwarded to the end and spliced again.. you would be at the start of side B. So based on what you showed on Camera.. when you finished the repair you where at the start of Side B. Also I did alot of repairs to cassettes when I was younger and they where still popular. I couldn't afford a fancy splicing block though.. so I just used regular tape and scissors.

Dude, I love your still shot thing with the cassettes on the operating table. AWESOME!!!

I had The George Benson Collection cassette tape brought from the thrift store, and it was so squeaky while playing. As an amateur, I fast forward and rewind it dozens of times, applied a tiny amount of silicone spray on reels, and finally cleaned the shell and the shield, which somewhat fixed it. After playing a while, the cassette deck decided to play both pulleys in the opposite direction destroying the tape. I ended up recording the whole album from a blank cassette tape.

Did the same thing a few days ago, the original splice failed. An unwelcome reminder of the mechanical nature of my hobby.

I was born in 1979 and I had one of the Fisher Price record players but what I remember buying and listening to music most on is cassette tapes. I had a pink and grey rounded corner I believe Lennox Sound/GPX or some name like that little single cassette AM FM radio player and I had several of the cheaper brand cassette tape walkman's. Often times me and my friend Amber used ours so much that the doors would break off and they'd still keep playing. Oh how I hate those cheap foam round over the ear headphones and I'm glad today we've got things such as ear buds. I honestly preferred my cassette tape style walkman's to the CD player diskman's because even if you walked briskly with those early CD walkman's they'd skip all over the place so forget about using one while riding your bike or rollerblades. Ah I still miss the 80s and 90s. I really enjoy your channel, you know so much about the electronics you feature and take the time to educate others. I wish I could come across some old turntables or just any better one than the Victrola Suitcase player I currently have. After we had a fire several years ago I lost my mother's vintage Pioneer turntable and shelf stereo system so it's been too expensive to try to find any good ones around here. I only managed to get the Victrola suitcase because right before Christmas they went down to $29 for them at walmart.

I have a 52 year old cassette from May 30th, 1970 that plays religious music, and plays fine, plus I found it at the thrift store.

Neat trick with twisting the cassette shell to open it.

"elbow muscle" lol

Every now & then i have fixed cassettes with a fair amount of success. Practically all of my tapes are those which I recorded myself. I used Scotch magic mending tape for splicing and had good luck with it. When a cassette gets kind of stiff, I squeeze and turn the cassette, check it out, and it usually frees up the tape inside. I have a lot of cassettes that are 40 to 50 years old that are still very good since I bought high quality (Sony, TDK, or Maxell) tape and store them in containers made for these tapes.

I’ve fixed hundreds of them over a 25 year period when I developed an interest in collecting all types of unspooled tapes on the side of the road and putting them back together and playing them back, beginning around the end of 1984. I never used a splicing tool and I would put the original odd shaped ends together like one big puzzle without cutting the ends off. Which avoids any skipped beat or whatever. No pieces were rejects in my book. Many tapes were like a box of chocolates. Never knowing what I’ll hear next. Some songs I heard for the first time came from such tossed away tapes of cast away sounds. I sure do miss that hobby now that roadside tapes are no more.

I remember when younger just using scissors and sellotape to fix snapped leaders and tapes, never had the splicing block & razor stuff, too fancy for my efforts... :P

Nice work. Have you ever attempted repair on an 8-track tape? I'd love to see your approach on that. It seems almost every 8-track I try self-destructs. I assume they're all breaking where the tape is spliced together, but I haven't opened them up to look. Maybe that twist trick will work on an 8-track as well? Or if they're glued, maybe heat will do it.

Oh, Flip Wilson, don’t ever change.

I have a Tony Hancock cassette called "Pieces of Hancock" purchased around 1967/8. I'm nor 100% sure of the year, as I was just a kid. So I assume it's at least 55 years old. It was fine for years but became more difficult to play over time. I tried it recently and it kept getting stuck, I assumed the tape was dead. I was lucky as it was screwed together, so it was easy to open. The tape reel looked OK, no mold or anything like that. Still, I gave everything a wipe down with an alcohol wipe and added the tiniest amount of lubricant to the inside of the shell. Which is when I checked the pinch rollers to discover that one of the metal pins had RUST on it, which I assume was stopping the pinch roller from rotating. I filed it down and added some lubricant to the pin and the inside of the pinch roller; and reassembled it all. Very happy to report that it now plays very well, and sounds fine.

I did this to my ccr Willy and the poor boys cassette a week ago lol crazy that you just released this video

Might just be a GRT thing... I've had to work on many of their 8-tracks over the past few years. They always seem to be the problem carts.

im surprised u didnt have an actual tape splicer, i have one with a roll of tape on it with a button to push like a stapler. i did do a lot of reel to reel, haven't seen that on your channel. goodnight

I have (well, my parents have) this very album on vinyl. Granted, the track order is almost completely different. It still gives me a huge smile and a laugh to this day, and this was before my time.

Man this is like a somewhat ambitious project I'm currently working on. I bought these two cassette sets of the old radio show "Lum & Abner" for my Dad (it was his favorite radio show from a kid in the '40s and'50s). Well, I got the sets (12 tapes total), and every tape had failed. All of the ones I tested did the same thing: they all disconnected from the spool. I think it's from where after the last owner's father bought the sets back in the '90s, listened to them once or twice, and then they sat on a shelf for 30 years. The clip on each spool had shrunk to the point where they were too small to hold the tape on. My project: I'm replacing every spool. My problem: not enough donor tapes. I tried looking online for new spools, but struck out on that. Btw, if you happen to know where I can get empty replacement spools, I'd greatly appreciate it. I've already repaired the first tape to prove concept, and it went fine...like I said, they were only played a handful of times. The tapes are otherwise pristine (and are screwed together instead of glued or heat-joined, thankfully).

This video is one I can relate to, having used many cassettes and repaired the odd one. I remember many years ago finding a tape with Creedence Clearwater Revival's greatest hits but the case was badly damaged. For such repairs I had on hand some cheap cassettes, 3 for $2. They're low quality, best for recording voice like talk shows but not for music. They have screws to take them apart, so I used one for a salvage cassette and it worked well, I still have it. I recall using these cheap tapes to salvage other tapes as well.

I refuse to believe 1972 is more than 28 years ago.

Glad our video helped a bit. I actually tried it on a regular analog cassette today and the front was cracked. On DCC it works every time for sure.

"This one is not screwed" Good pun lol!

I did this soo many times in the 70s and 80s. Also, removing damaged parts of tape mid pack. You left one thing out: what is your solution for re-fastening the shell halves together? I found that liquid polystyrene cement, otherwise known as model glue worked well.

well I took a cassette tape part I've got all the parts but reassembling it especially not twisting the tape has been an extremely difficult operation… And somehow somewhere along the line right in the beginning I lost one of the pins that was on the little corner spool… Makes no sense to me what happened… I don't know if I will ever be able to assemblage… You make it look so easy… But I do appreciate because your hair is the most complete that I have found

If it was me, I would just splice the old cassette tape into the "donor" cassette shell. I can ever remember when Radio Shack used to sell cassette shells with just leader tapes to "stick in" tape from a bad one. Boy do I feel old now :/

Nice video! I hope you have more of those 10 minute cassettes, those are my favorite type. Very old cheap cassettes with no obvious branding.

Thanks for all the info and just love the test card...we have loads...xx

back in the 80s you could buy ten cassettes for a dollar or 2. they were SUPER cheap, they didnt even have a cassette box, just loose. i only used them to record songs off the radio. anyway, the tape snapped all the time and being a broke kid, i used to use a scissor and a small piece of transparent tape to repair them. it worked great. i used to use a knife to open the cases, they didnt go back together good, so i just used the same scotch tape to make them stay together. i still have few of those tapes.

i have 2 LE-BO branded cassettes from the 70's or 80's and one of them broke the first time i tried to play it. it also didnt have the screws but did have a springy felt pad inside. after i repaired it i found out my dad had recorded steve winwood on it.

Remember driving down the road and seeing "cassette salad" on the side of the road?

I was the cassette doctor in my school and I would crack open any non screw housing most times with little to no damage. Still have many here.

I tuned out for a sec and when I looked up at 5:59 I thought we had a face reveal! 😆

No matter how old or how damaged cassette tapes were, they always play well and Amazing, Crisp Clear for me! Best medium format for Music 🎶 and sound Reproduction Ever Invented! Especially with Full-Logic, Selinoid Driven, AMS / RMS- Automatic Music Sensor Random Music 🎶 Sensor.

Yeah for my part I'm not Good fixing small stuff but I'm good for watching your videos have a nice Thursday.

My friend had that Flip Wilson album on vinyl way back. Funny stuff.

I've done this and even done splicing. I wasn't the best at it but it worked. Was at school at the time so I used scissors and regular office tape. After a few plays the tape worked. My oldest tapes go back to the early 90s and are just me and my friends goofing off. Sort of like KZfaq of the 90s.

Makes me want to dig out my WIBG top 10 tape, I think that was around '72 as well.

Good job you did there. Recently did something like that. Second hand tape deck sold as "brand new" screwed up one of my old tapes... I had to cut a piece of tape off that was just ruined. Without any toolkit or donor leader tape... Put the leftover good tape into the reel without any leader at all. Think all I used was sciccors and a screwdriver... Just warning you; watch out for "restorated fully checked as good as new" tape decks "with guarantee" (you'll never get) sold at ridiculous high prices on the internet; 9 times out of 10 you're being cheated.... Better buy 10 old decks for almost nothing... 9 times out of those ten you'll have at least ONE working ok and you might be able to fix another two by exchanging parts

I have all three cases. This is my new project. I must save my beloved Christmas cassettes (some over 50 years old!)

A those graphite slipsheets, I call them “Gripsheets” because obvious reasons. I throw them out every time I get into an old tape

Here Comes the Judge

I have a Soundhog brand cassette from the 1970s where the case opens by pressing the area marked 'press' and the cassette slides out.

The Champaign bubbles made Lawrence Wells tape sticky.

One Tip: Put the Splicing Tape always on the inner side of the tape so i doesnt touch the heads. Nice Video!

Awesome stuff. I LOVE cassettes!! 🤩

I have a super rare Stephen King audio book cassette that I need to repair like this.

I didnt realize cassettes were that old

Oh... I noticed you glued your tape over the recorded side and not under like as usual. Doing this your tape heads will suffer some kind of damage. BTW nice video.

I'm definitely stealing that phrase "elbow muscle".👍

I enjoyed your video I learned something new today keep up the good content

2:25 I'm from Winchester, the exact place where the album was called after! Small world.

Great video, and great endcard! :-)