Rant: my good Sony Walkman ate a rare mixtape last night

I was digitizing my old tape collection in the basement off of Route 9 in Poughkeepsie, and my trusty Sony WM-36 just chewed up the first 30 seconds of a 1987 mixtape my cousin made for me. The pinch roller felt sticky and the tape got tangled around the capstan before I could hit stop. I managed to unwind it, but the magnetic strip is creased pretty bad near the leader. Has anyone else had luck salvaging a mangled tape with a heat trick or should I just frame it and move on?

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1 Comment

nora_baker23d ago

That crease near the leader is brutal. I had a similar thing happen with a punk tape from 85. The heat trick never worked for me, it just made the tape more brittle. What did work was careful patience with a flat iron on the lowest setting, a cloth between the iron and tape, and lots of slow, gentle smoothing. It played okay after that, but you'll always hear that spot. If it's truly rare, I'd digitize what you can and frame it. Better than losing it completely.