In article , "ampdoc" wrote:

"Farmer Bill" wrote in message
...

I bought a used AM/FM/Cassette deck for my car. Unfortunately, the
heads, capstans, and pinch rollers were filthy. A cleaning tape barely
made a dent in the grime, so I cleaned everything gently with Q-tips and
rubbing alcohol. But there is still visible corrosion on the tape head,
causing playback to sound muffled (in one direction only; in the other
direction, the music sounds fine; it's a reversible deck). I have run
the (wet) cleaning tape through the machine about 15 times, to no
avail.

Does anyone know of a safe method to remove corrosion from audio
cassette tape heads? Not sure if I'm savvy enough to try to remove the
tape head from my old player and put it in the new player. Maybe I just
need to buy another used deck from a more reputable seller.

Many thanks.


Auto reversing decks commonly have the problem of unequal playbacks, that
why I always stayed away from them. It sounds like a tuneup is necessary, by
making adjustments so the playback sounds similar.



--
Farmer Bill

The common practice in Aviation repair shops to freshen up flight recorder
heads that are scratched is to use Micromesh, a extremely fine abrasive. I'd
assume it would be just fine on any magnetic tape head. Start with a 2400
grit, knock the worst off and then go up to 3600 and finish up. Also adjust
the Azimuth, there should be screws on either side of the tape head to ajust
the tilt of the head, if the Azimuth is off the sound will be noably lacking
in treble and have a muffled sound.

One source for Micromesh-
http://www.sisweb.com/micromesh/mmr_sheets.htm


That sounds like the best way of removing the corrosion. I once tried lapping a
head. I was doing good, but then I really ruined it I will never figure out why my brand
new reel to reel had a bad head. It was a floor unit, but was sold as new.
I thought it was just me that the tapes were being eaten by the machine, and the tapes
were expensive on those 10 inch metal reels. Solved the problem by buying new heads
from Teac, well after the warrenty expired.

greg