Components of Reel-to-Reel Tape Recorder

Video Transcript

"For Expert Village, I'm Kurt, chief engineer at KGB Studios. We're continuing our series on how to restore a 4-track reel-to-reel tape machine. Again here let?s continue our session. We're going to need to take and remove this particular piece off of the back of this so that we can actually see the various reel motors and such. In order to do that we're going to have to get our little Phillips screwdriver here and take all these screws out on the back. So let?s go ahead and do that now. We'll just start by getting these taken off here. They're just Phillips screwdriver or an electric drill and you can just take these all off. There should be a total of 8 on the back right here. All right, so here's the back of the tape machine at this point. What we've got here is one of the take-up spooler reels right here. This is the capstan reel. This is what turns the center part and it's connected. I don't know if you can see this, but where the pin is touching, there's an actual belt right there. Sometimes that actually breaks and that's a critical thing. This is actually the fan, this black portion right here. And then behind this one here. This is the toughest motor to get to and it's another spool take-up reel. Over here we have the various and sundry potentiometers and connections. Yeah, potentiometers that adjust various voltages, biases and adjustments there. And then down below here we have the various and sundry connectors. Configurations for the front part of the deck that we talked about in an early session. So, that's the back of the deck. The most important pieces that you'll have to pay attention to; are going to be the reel and then down below, you'll actually have to take this off. You'll have to take this piece off and then loosen this piece up here as well, take that one off. So, that you can get to the belt if you need to do that. Those are the pieces in the back that you have to pay attention to."