How to Splice Videocassette Tape Together

More often than not, VCR owners have had the misfortune of dealing with a jammed tape. The tape may eventually come out, but a lot of times it is with struggle. Sometimes you may even end up with a broken tape. All is not lost for that tape though, because with a little work you can fix the tape with minimal problems and have it in working order once again.

Things You'll Need

• Scotch Tape
• Screwdriver

Instructions

1. Flip your tape upside down and locate the five screws on the backside. Three of the screws are deep, so make sure that you that you are using a thin enough screwdriver that can reach the screws without damaging the tape.

2. Unscrew the five screws and place them in a location where you cannot lose track of them. You will need all of the screws later to keep the tape properly playing.

3. Slowly remove the back of the tape. Be gentle with this, because you do not want any of the pieces snapping and ruining the tape for good. On the top of the tape, two silver pieces will slide out and these are key parts that you should keep intact.

4. Examine the tape. There should be two sections of spools and the broken piece of tape should be towards the middle of the spool.

5. Take a small piece of scotch tape and tape the two pieces together. Keep the scotch tape piece as thin as possible and make sure that there are no extra areas hanging off the side.

6. Manually rewind the tape so that the taped piece will not be the first part to play when you put the tape in. You can easily do this by spinning the spools towards the left. Spin the spools fully three to four times.

7. Gently pull the tape up so that there is a little extra slack. You need to prepare the tape so that it can reconnect to the other half of the cassette. This is the hardest part, so take your time and follow the curved path that the tape is supposed to settle into.

8. Push the two halves of the tape back into place and make sure that everything is attached correctly.

9. Screw in the five screws into the back of the tape tightly.

10. Test the tape in your VCR. The same section that is taped with scotch tape may jump a little but the rest of the tape should play fine.

Tips & Warnings

• Be careful when opening up the VHS tape. You could easily damage more tape and make the VHS unplayable.