Spent five bucks on a paper towel trick that fixed my wobbly tape reels

I had this old mix tape that kept wobbling in my deck, sounded all warpy. I tried cleaning the capstan, replacing the felt pad, nothing worked. Then a guy at a record shop told me to cut a tiny strip of paper towel and stick it under the tape pack in the shell, just to add a little tension. Figured it was a dumb idea but I gave it a shot. Worked perfect. The tape plays steady now. Anybody else got a random hack like that for saving a tape that seems toast?

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ryanprice18h ago

A buddy of mine swears by the 3.5 inch floppy disk trick for stabilizing cassette tapes. He'll open the shell, stack two of those little circular metal shutter tabs from old floppies on top of each other, and wedge them under the tape pack. Said it's saved about a dozen tapes from the trash pile. I tried it once on a warped Springsteen bootleg and it actually worked.