How to remove item in VHS winding?
 

Hi all,

So I was recording a 3 hour long tape, and once it finished had the tape wound back. I took out the tape and saw a small object lodged in the tape winding :( See attached image.

It was probably in there beforehand, as I do remember hearing a little rattling when handling the tape.

Any advice on how to remove?

~hl

I see a small yellow object near the centre of the reel, causing a bad wind around it. Also the wind is poor at the outer edge. Not sure what that was caused by. Both highlighed in photo.

To remove the yellow object I would carefully wind until the object is no longer captured by the tape winds, then open up the cassette and hopefully the object will be free to be removed.

While in there you may see what has contributed to the poor outside wind. If you're not sure about disassembling and reassembling a VHS cassette there's probably a YT demo.

Also while inside the cassette is an ideal time to carefully clean the insides of the cassette halves being careful not to damage or dislodge the parts. The tape should not be touched with bare fingers but suitable gloves worn. Tweezers can be used to carefully re position the tape around the guide posts as they were when the cassette was opened.

We dont know how competent you are so this is all at your own risk of course. It may be better to have an experienced person deal with this.

I would rewind the tape close enough for the object to be still there held by few coils of the tape, Remove the tape from the VCR, manually rewind the tape until the object is free, then open the cassette shell and get it out, You don't want to rewind all the way inside the VCR until it's free, it way stick to the tape and hit the video drum.

Good point. I would also avoid a fast fast wind as it only increases the risk of further tape damage. Unfortunately many later model VCR's had very fast winds and around the heads. Maybe just play the tape to the point needed. I have kept some old VCR's which wind the tape relatively slowly and inside the cassette without the tape being withdrawn and run around the heads.

Opening a VHS cassette (this includes tape rejoin but the opening and closing is relevant):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kurE-FuqkbU

Thanks all, will attempt the repair hopefully today:

1. Forward the tape until it's close to the object (with our older VCR)
2. Manually wind until object is free
3. Open tape to remove object with gloves and tweezers before closing again

Yeah unfortunately I fell asleep when the tape was recording, and once it ended the player did that fast wind back :depressed: Normally I'd stop it and use our older Panasonic player to do the winding; because you're right, the older players do the job slower than the newer ones.

Will report back on how it went.

There is one problem with that video, Never touch a magnetic tape with a tip of a screwdriver, Most of them are made from a hard metal that has magnetic properties, If you have valuable memories in that section they will not be completly erased but damaged enough to not play properly, It is safe to use plastic or wooden sticks. Always take YT videos with a grain of salt, a lot of them don't know what they don't know.