I was digging through a bin in Portland last Tuesday and this older guy told his friend to never stack tapes flat because the weight warps the reels over time. I've always kept my collection sideways on a shelf, but I have a few big clamshell boxes that only fit flat. He said even 5 or 6 tapes piled up can mess with the playback after a couple decades. My thrift store finds are mostly 80s horror and I don't want to ruin them. Anyone here actually run into warped reels from flat storage, or is that more of an old wives tale? I'd rather find out before I lose a copy of Sleepaway Camp to a wobbly tape path.
I was at a thrift store in Portland last week and saw a stack of about 20 Disney VHS tapes sitting flat on a shelf right under a heating duct. The plastic cases were all warped and two of them had the actual tape spool showing through the label. I asked the clerk how long theyd been there and she said maybe three years. Three years of hot air blowing down on those tapes. I've been collecting for about 15 years now and I can tell you that heat is the number one killer of VHS tapes. Even if you store them the right way vertical and spine out a heater vent will ruin them in one season. Has anyone else seen stores or collectors make this mistake with tapes near heat sources?
I grabbed a copy of The Thing from a garage sale for 50 cents last Saturday, and the tape was all bunched up inside because someone stored it standing up for years, so why do folks not realize these things need to lay flat to keep the reels from sagging?
I grabbed a Panasonic VCR at a thrift store in Portland for $50 last month and it worked fine for like 3 weeks. Then it just shredded the tape on my favorite copy of The Fugitive, pulled it right out of the cassette shell. I should have spent the extra cash on a tested unit from a shop, has anyone else had a thrift store player destroy a tape on them?
I was digging through a VCR repair manual from 1987 at a thrift store in Boise and found a table showing standard play rewind puts way less stress on the helical drum compared to the high speed option, so now I always hit play-rewind instead of the fast button and my tapes run smoother anyone else notice less tracking issues doing it slow?
I found a copy of The Matrix at a thrift store in Phoenix last summer for 50 cents. Got it home and left it standing upright on a shelf in my garage for about 3 months. When I finally popped it in, the tape had this weird wavy playback and the audio kept dropping out every 10 seconds. Opened it up and the tape pack had shifted inside the shell from the heat. Had to carefully wind it back with a pencil and store the whole thing flat in my living room, away from the AC vent. Anyone else had tape sag issues from storing them on their side too long?
Some older dude saw me stacking my VHS tapes flat at a Goodwill in Phoenix and said I was killing the magnetic layers. I switched to storing them upright a month ago and my old copy of The Rock finally plays through without that skipping sound on scene 3. Anyone else get random advice from strangers that actually worked?
I was at a Goodwill in Phoenix last Saturday and grabbed a copy of The Thing on VHS for $2. Got home, popped it in, and about 20 minutes in the tape got chewed up and half the ribbon is now wadded inside the cassette shell. Anyone know a safe way to untangle a spool without ruining the magnetic coating?
I mean, everyone online always says isopropyl alcohol and a lint free cloth is the way to go right? I was at this little thrift joint in Portland last Saturday digging through a box of old Disney tapes when the old guy running the place saw me look at a grimy copy of The Little Mermaid. He asked if I clean my heads at home and I told him yeah with alcohol and a swab. He just shook his head and said I was probably pushing dried gunk deeper into the drum. He showed me his method with a plain paper towel and just dry friction, no liquid at all. Told me alcohol can actually strip the lubricant off the bearings if you keep at it long enough. I went home and tried it on a VCR I'd been getting snow lines on and sure enough the picture cleared right up after a couple passes. Has anyone else had their whole cleaning routine turned upside down like that?
Was at a Salvation Army in Portland last Saturday and saw a stack of Disney VHS tapes for $0.50 each. The Lady and the Tramp tape had a handwritten note inside saying 'rewind to start or else'. I grabbed it anyway and the tape was wound totally wrong when I got home, all slack and twisted. Makes me wonder if people actually know how to properly wind tape back onto the spool without damaging it. Anyone got a reliable method for fixing a tape that got jumbled up in the case?
I grabbed a box of tapes from a thrift store in Toledo for $3 last month. One of them looked like a blank but it had about 20 minutes of a wedding from 1992 and then it switched to a scrambled HBO movie. The tracking was so bad on the wedding part I had to adjust the heads manually just to see what was happening. It made me wonder if anyone else has found tapes that had personal recordings mixed with random TV stuff. How do you even keep that kind of tape from getting worse over time?
I had a conversation with an old guy at a garage sale in Akron last month. He saw me flipping through some Disney tapes and asked how I store them. I said I just stack them sideways in a bin to save space. He shook his head and told me the weight of the tapes on top can warp the plastic cases over time, and the pressure can mess up the tape spools inside. I shrugged it off at first, but then I checked my bin at home and found three tapes with cracks along the edges and one that wobbles on the spool now. Twenty bucks worth of tapes ruined because I wanted to save six inches of shelf space. Anyone else had tapes get damaged from sideways storage?
I used to always fast-forward through the end credits to rewind my tapes faster. Then a guy at the local thrift store told me that puts extra strain on the tape itself and can cause it to snap over time. I switched to rewinding right after the movie ends without touching the fast-forward button. My tapes have been running smoother ever since, especially my old copy of The Lost Boys. Has anyone else gotten grief from a collector about their tape habits?
I was just reorganizing my shelves on Sunday and decided to count everything up. Turns out I have exactly 507 VHS tapes now. I started collecting about 3 years ago from thrift stores around Portland. The wild thing is I never planned to hit a round number like that. Most of them are random horror and sci-fi movies from the 80s and 90s. I even found a sealed copy of The Beastmaster for a dollar at a Goodwill last month. Does anyone else keep a running count of their tapes or do you just eyeball it?
I used to just stack my VHS tapes like books on a shelf, all piled up on top of each other. Last year some retired guy at the Goodwill in Des Moines saw me tossing tapes into a bin and said, "You're gonna wreck the reels doing that, store 'em on end like records." Switched to storing them all upright in milk crates after that, and I haven't had a tape jam or get stuck since. Has anyone else gotten random advice from a stranger that actually worked out better than what you were doing?
I grabbed this little plastic rewinder at a flea market in Akron for $15, thought I was being smart saving my VCR heads. Plugged it in, ran my copy of The Thing through it, and halfway through the tape started making this grinding noise before it snapped clean inside. I opened it up and the gear that spins the reel was just straight up cracked, no way to fix it. Has anyone else had luck with those cheap standalone rewinders or should I just go back to using my VCR to rewind?
Was reading an old 1992 issue of Video Review magazine I found at a thrift store in Portland. There was this article about tape degradation. It said most standard VHS tapes start losing quality after about 10 to 15 years if stored in a basement or attic with temperature swings. I got curious. Looked up modern data online from a restoration forum. Turns out tapes stored in stable 70 degree rooms with low humidity can last 40 plus years easy. My buddy keeps his whole horror collection in a hot garage. I told him he is basically destroying them slowly. Feels like we all grew up thinking these things were indestructible. Anyone else find weird facts from old magazines that changed how you store your tapes?
Last weekend I was at a St. Vinnies in Portland and this old guy running the electronics section saw me grab a copy of The Rock and start rewinding it by hand. He just shook his head and said 'you're grinding the gears doing that twice as much, you know.' I had always heard you should rewind and then fast forward again to loosen the tape before playing it. But he showed me a chewed up tape from his bin where the sprockets were all worn down from that exact habit. Now I just do one slow rewind before playing and my tapes actually run smoother without that crunching sound. Anyone else get bad advice that ended up wearing out your collection?
He said rewinding a tape a second time would "settle the magnetic dust" back into place, and after I did it for years I finally realized my player was just eating the tape slower because I was giving it more time to cool down between spins, so who was really right here, the superstition or the actual physics?
Found out from a thrift store owner that stacking tapes flat for months can warp the reels, and now I check every tape I grab at Goodwill for that telltale wavy wobble before buying.
I was in the bargain bin last Tuesday (you know the one, stuffed between a broken VCR and a furby) and spotted a clamshell case with that classic Disney black cover. The tape itself was fine, but someone had taped a little note inside that said "Happy birthday Timmy, hope you still like this movie - Mom." It got me thinking about how we used to pass tapes around as gifts back then, and now I just buy everything on streaming without a second thought. Has anyone else found something personal tucked inside a thrift store tape?
Always thought tape rewinder machines were a scam to sell people something they didn't need. Picked up a Star Trek II tape from Goodwill in Portland last month and it played all choppy. Figured I'd try a rewinder for $12 just to see. Ran that tape through it three times and now the picture is clean as a whistle. Has anyone else had a rewinder actually fix a finicky tape?
I was digging through a bin of old horror VHS at the Goodwill off Highway 17 last weekend, and this older guy next to me starts going on about how he never uses a rewinder machine. He said he thinks the fast rewind mode on VCRs stretches the tape over time and messes with the tracking. I kinda laughed it off at first, but then he showed me a beat-up copy of The Thing that he claimed has played perfectly for 30 years because he always manually rewinds it with a pencil in the spool. Now I'm sitting here looking at my pile of tapes wondering if I've been slowly wrecking them all these years. Has anyone else ever heard of hand-rewinding being better for tape health?
Popped it in last night and the color was way better than any of my other secondhand tapes, must have been stored in a closet for 25 years. Anybody else ever find a sealed tape and notice the difference in quality?
I always kept my VHS tapes flat stacked because it looked neat on the shelf. Dave said I was crushing the bottom tapes and messing up the reels over time, something about the weight pressing down on the spindles. Switched to storing them upright like books last month and now I check each one before rewinding. Has anyone else had cases fail from stacking them too high?