that must have been awesome!

Actually it was a slight panic. The "blow up" involves the sensing foil - it causes an 8 track player to shift the head to play the next program - which tends to give way/fall off due to the age of the adhesive. If it happens before the foil reaches the head - no worries as the tape just stops at that point. BUT...

If it happens after the foil has passed the head and is moving past the pinch roller what usually happens is what folks refer to as the tape getting "eaten" by the player. The capstan starts to pull the now loose tape into the player since it tends to bunch up just past the pinch roller as it is no longer being drawn into the cartridge. If caught in time usually no damage occurs to the tape. If not, one can end up with a section being "accordianed" so to speak to completely destroying a section of the tape itself by crinkling or stretching the tape. Some of that can be flattened with an iron set to low heat, but it is a tricky process which I am not real confident about.

Fortunately I caught the one - Weather Report's Mysterious Traveller album - quickly and was able to splice the tape back together. The Joni Mitchell album I was just working on a couple days ago was not caught as quickly. Luckily I had a duplicate cart of the same album - Court & Spark by the way - and was able to complete a full transfer for disc.

I had been pulling the carts at the program change due to the sensing foil issue, but had not been carefully scrutinizing the foil as I should have been. Change in approach going forward - just going to reinforce the splice even if it seems okay so I prevent another mishap.

And now you know way more than you wanted to most likely. Indeed the 8 track cartridge, while nice, is not as great an invention as the clothes pin.

Weird thing about sensor tape is that you didn't really need that three second out or in pause when they split a song...

glad things worked out on that
it sounds a detail oriented task requiring a precise touch!

I always disliked it when a song was split between programs Goofus. For a long time that was my only quibble with 8 tracks. The neat thing about doing these tapes I'm working on now is that with ProTools I can go in and put the tunes back together without the break from the program change. Two of the Tomita albums had that situation and things went well.

It's more of a reflex thing agnes - pulling the cart before damage occurs. The actual splicing - since it's at a point where there is no music - is relatively easy to do. Thanks for the well wishes though - I do appreciate them. Hopefully the rest will go okay - got 11 more to do for the friend I'm doing these for. (that was poorly said, but my brain is too tired to figure out a better way)

Yikes, I just realized that's 66 more hours for him, but I do have a few he didn't want to do for myself. Boy Howdy and pass the syrup!

Sadly all my 8track went missing after Mike passed. I dunno if they went to auction or got thrown out. So sad. I had an 8-track of Deep Purple that got ate up in the 8-track deck. I set it aside to hopefully fix it and had it in the back porch room. My mom found it and threw it out. My mom said you can't fix it, it's not worth it. I was an old 60's album of theirs on 8-track. I remember my dad having an 8-track of Johnny Cash and his Lear Jet 8-track deck that was in his car ate it up. He was so p'd off when that happened lol...

A lot of that old stuff is available on CD now...or exists on YouTube or some other website. The music isn't lost forever...that 8 track wasn't the only copy in the world. Just do a search for it...I'm sure you'll find some of it.

As cool as your mom probably is Cheryl she's wrong about fixing an 8 track. It indeed can be done, but it is not something for the impatient to tackle. And as Sue suggested, you can find the music somewhere most likely. You can probably even buy another 8 track on ebay.

Ahh! The old 8-track in my '64 Chevy Bel Aire (affectionately named "The Bizarro-mobile"). I remember wintry, snowy nights, cruisin' the back roads, listening to herbally enhanced Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma" on the 8-track! Umm ... at least I think I remember .....

Actually drove the Bizarro-mobile up to Stockbridge one snowy day with a bunch of friends to see if we could find the church. We did .... at least I think we did ....

Thanks for the info ya'll. I managed to find on someone blog where they had put up that Deep Purple album I had the 8-track of for folks to download since it's so old and probably rare. So I got that back. Having the 8-track was nostalgia for me. I don't have anything to play them on tho. I had to let my 70's stereo, Mike's 8-track deck and his 80's stereo go to auction cuz my folks had no room for them. I did keep an antique looking stereo with record player, radio, cassette and cd player that I got Mike some yrs ago, so that I would have something to play my records on. And I kept my favorite boombox of his. I had heard that you could fix the 8-tracks but my mom is someone who loves to throw everything out lol...

Yes the humble wooden pin is an excellent roach clip the small groove prevents pinching it flat so as to provide a full toke.

What's that? Oh, yeah! The original topic! You can also clip a bunch of 'em together in a line so you don't have to reach so far when you pass it.

"Cept that can be kind of droopy though Capt. (At least the way I pictured it)

Depends on the angle of the dangle and the zing of the spring.

Indeed, with some clever assemblage one can accomplish a good reach.