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Vent: My uncle told me to clean tape heads with rubbing alcohol and it messed up my best mix
So my uncle Bob, who used to DJ in the 80s, swore by using 91% isopropyl alcohol on a Q-tip to clean tape heads. I tried it on my '97 Fleetwood Mac mixtape I got from a garage sale in Denver, and now the playback sounds all warped on side B. Turns out he forgot to mention you need to use 70% or lower, because the higher concentration can dry out the rubber pinch roller. Has anyone else wrecked a tape following old advice like that?
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sage5229d ago
Did he also tell you to use WD-40 on the cassette door hinges while you were at it? I had an old timer tell me to use lighter fluid on a sticky capstan once, and my whole tape smelled like a campfire for a year. Uncle Bob probably means well but his tips come from an era where you could just slap a tape on the dash and hope for the best. Sorry about your Fleetwood Mac mix though, that's a real bummer.
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robinc6629d ago
I mean, nobody's brought up that lighter fluid might have actually wrecked the pinch roller too, not just the smell, because that stuff eats rubber over time. @sage52, that's probably why your deck started eating tapes after that, not just the campfire issue. Uncle Bob's heart is in the right place but his methods belong in a museum next to those old 8-tracks.
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