Cassette felt repair help

aabottom

Swing

• Aug 16, 2010

• #1

I found some Pat Benatar cassettes at the thift. Some sound good, some not so good.

On a few of them the felt pressure pad fell off. I'm thinking about glueing them back on, but what type of glue should I use: rubber cement, super glue?

Also, on one the cassette, the felt pressure pad is missing. What to do? Buy some felt? Pull the felt off a cheap RadioShack cassette?

Any suggestions and hint would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

Satcom123

Super Member

• Aug 17, 2010

• #2

I had some same problems with older cassette tapes. I used the felt tabs with metal still attached from older bad cassette. I went a step further by cleaning the rollers and oiling the metal shafts. Actually oil then wipe off. Worked pretty good.

 

aabottom

Swing

• Aug 17, 2010

• #3

Satcom123 said:

I had some same problems with older cassette tapes. I used the felt tabs with metal still attached from older bad cassette. I went a step further by cleaning the rollers and oiling the metal shafts. Actually oil then wipe off. Worked pretty good.

Click to expand...

Thanks- good idea on pulling the whole metal/felt assembly.

 

jimbofish

for TRULY GREAT MUSIC

• Aug 17, 2010

• #4

I use double sided tape, but almost any household adhesive should work except super glue or paste.

 

AAA3330

Super Member

• Aug 17, 2010

• #5

I bought some self-adhesive sheet felt from the hardware store that worked well for me.

 

aabottom

Swing

• Aug 17, 2010

• #6

OK, thanks. I think I'll just use rubber cement since I have tons of it and its re-doable.

 

aabottom

Swing

• Aug 22, 2010

• #7

Well, I used rubber cement to glue the felt pressure pads back on the metal plates. The good news is that I found the 4th missing pad inside its cassette. The glue seem to hold pretty well. The procedure is simple and effective.

They all sound much better now, but on two of the them the tape is too far gone- they sound muddy and/or are highly distorted in places.

In all, I bought 8 tapes for $4. All but two of them sound OK.

Thus ends my experiment in the used tape thrift market. I think $0.50 a tape is too much. I likely won't be buying any more used tapes at that price.

Thanks for all the replies