[HELP] Repairing a reel-to-reel style cassette

[MemorexRTC]

Hello I am new here and have searched everywhere for a website or forum for someone who can help me with a serious problem I am having.

Many years ago, my band recorded onto cassettes and we have those old recordings only in that format. Recently we dug these out only to discover that the storage box had been crushed in a collapse of our things and some of the protective casings (the actual cassette casing) got cracked. These tapes can easily be transferred to other formats still but the thing is we want the tapes to be repaired. So naturally, I took them apart and took the pieces out and put them into new casings of blank cassettes. But this is the problem.

The cassettes we recorded onto were not ordinary ones, they were reel-to-reel style cassettes, as can be seen in the picture here. (the attachment)

This might not seem like a big problem but it really is. Normal cassette outer-casing has indented holes to grip into the wheels, and the wheels on these do not have these grooves - so when I transfer all the working parts into a new blank cassettes casing, the wheels are squashed and will not turn.

Can anyone please help me with this? It's been a long path and we still haven't got a solution! Are there any ways around this problem? I've seen people repairing these on youtube - even making their own! And they never seem to have this problem - so how do they do it? I've loosened the screws on the outer casings but thats really not a solution because for one, it doesn't work and secondly it makes the casing weaker. The goal here is to have our old tapes restored as tapes - not just converted to a different format.

Hoping someone can help.

[paulsherwin]

The simplest solution will be to transfer the tape to new standard hubs. You will need to take care not to damage or contaminate the tape.

I have to say that cassettes like these are unlikely to record music very well. They were intended to be used with things like Sinclair Spectrums to store programs.

[G8UWM-MildMartin]

The other simple solution is to find identical replacement shells.
A search for "computape" on Ebay shows some for sale in Europe.

[MemorexRTC]

Thanks for the advice. Do any of you know though of any cassettes that can house these sort of reels? Or how people in YouTube are not having the squashed reel issue?

[Restoration73]

I assume these are standard speed stereo ; some of the Tascam 4-track Portastudios used
double cassette speed (9.5cm/s) to get better quality. If you love the analogue
sound get a high speed reel to reel copy (38) made and I doubt you will notice any
generational loss.

[GeoffB17]

Further to this, I have a range of cassettes to check, also I do have one (only) of the 'spool' cassettes - in my case it's a TEAC brand, with 'cobalt' tape, and it's a C52 as this format will not allow as much tape.

On checking closely (visual) it would appear that most cassette bodies will NOT work, but it would appear that come varieties of SONY bodies might work, I've got some UCX-S that seem to have the right/similar layout. The only way to confirm would be to do it?

If a repl body is not possible, then it would be necessary to transfer the actual tape. I have a BIB cassette editing device which has a facility to mount two cassettes side by side, splice the tape from one into the other, and use a winder to move the tape. I have C0 cassettes (cassette body with leader tape ONLY) into which such tape could be spliced.

I have seen such 'spool' cassettes advertised, but I cannot remember where.

These tapes were sold for use in upmarket decks, for primarily the visual effect. They certainly look snazzy! If well made, I see no reason why there should be any problem regarding recording quality. There could well be less well made ones, with lesser tape stock, that might be good for 'looks' ONLY (take the photos, then put a 'proper' tape in for the sound).

Geoff

[sp10mk11]

I remember TEAC introducing such tapes that looked fantastic and were very expensive but that's all I remember
Gary

[GeoffB17]

Yes, can't remember how much mine were when I got 2 maybe back in the 80's, I guess about 3 or 4 times the price of a C90, even though they were only C52.

I must confess, I've never actually recorded anything on the one I have left (the other got given, still virgin, to a friend years ago), so I cannot say how they record, but I have no reason to suspect that they will not perform fine.

For the OP, when I look at a website for one of the cassette duplicator firms, and they illustrate various cassette bodies available, one of the types is referred to as 'prison', and that type shows the complete clear body, no separate window, no sign of any obstructions, i.e. must like the style required for inserting the hubs from the broken tapes. The body WOULD need the small flange around the sprocket holes to maintain the position of the hubs, but that flange should be the ONLY thing interfering with the inner width of the shell. And of course the flange should match the inner hub, so the flange would fit into a space within the center of the hub. To check further, a close-up photo of the hub (out of the shell) would be a help, and/or a close-up of the flange on the broken shell. I may well have one or more suitable shells that might work?

Geoff

[Nicklyons2]

I would abandon the 'reel transplant' method and splice the tape into decent housings. At car bootys there are loads of old cassettes - look for old BASF or Agfa tapes with screw together SM housings or similar. Cut off the original tape after the leader and splice your tape onto the leader. You might have to tediously wind the tape manually onto one hub with a pencil - but if it's that valuable - I've had to do it with valued recordings.

I believe Paul is correct (in post #2), although some "up-market" flashy tapes were made with simulated reels I don't believe these are of that type; the clue is in the name,
COMPUTAPE DATASET which strongly implies, IMHO, a tape intended for data recording. Most data tapes had, in my experience (very) low energy/coercivity oxides suited to simple binary data recoding not 'hi-fi'; used in a decent cassette machine they would have been hideously over-biased.

[Gulliver]

I think the idea of using a standard style cassette as a donor shell/hub set is the best. You might even buy brand new cassettes for this purpose.

Some computer cassette tapes were regular type I audio tape whereas others were specifically designed for 8-bit computer data. They will saturate early (distort at relatively low levels) and the bias could be way off. I have a couple of those reel style computer cassettes and I know one suffered a cracked shell so these were not the strongest cassettes ever made.

[Nickthedentist]

Is the OP trying to retain the special, reel-to-reel look though? If this is the case, then he'd need to source a similar-looking cassette to use as a shell/reel/leader donor, rather than a bog-standard one.

This might be hard to find, or at least, costly. And splicing skills would be required.

[ben]

Just get some of these, they should be an exact match and you can swap the spools over.

Or if not available maybe these.