Respooling A Chewed-up VCR Tape Or Audio Cassette
| Field | Home Entertainment |
| Went Obsolete | late 1990s/early 2000s |
| Made Obsolete By | optical discs and computer files |
| Knowledge Assumed | Use of a screwdriver, some mechanical ability, steady hands |
| When useful | When trying to save a favorite tape |
To do this task, you need a screwdriver that fits the tape, so you can take it apart. Set the tape, screws up, on a table, and unscrew all the screws. Remove the top half of the tape casing, leaving the bottom half on the table. Carefully remove both spools from where they rest - before doing so, be sure to note (and perhaps sketch) what path the tape follows.
To flatten crinkled tape, run the tape over the side of a pencil a few times - this works best with two people, one to hold the pencil, and one to hold the two spools of tape.
Carefully replace the spools where they belong. This is easiest to do if you put the larger spool down in its place first, setting something heavy across its face (to cover the whole thing and prevent unspooling), then running the tape along its correct path, then placing the second spool in its place.
When replacing the top half of the tape casing, be sure to allow the tape to follow the correct path - sometimes this can be very tricky. Also tricky can be repositioning the spring-mechanism on a VHS/Betamax tape if you needed to move it in order to fix the spools.
The above may be a bit excessive, however. Most damaged tape passes under a mechanism okay, though flattening wrinkled areas can minimize the loss of sound or picture; important for collectible or irreplaceable tapes.
See http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/vcr.htm(approve sites) for images