Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

I have loads of vhs tapes and posess a small tv with an integral VHS player. Currently I can only get sound and have a feeling that the vhs head could do with a clean. If anyone has one I would like either to buy it or rent it. Please contact me if so.
Regards
Julia

Hello. You may struggle to find a VHS cleaning tape (unless someone should have one lying in a drawer somewhere!) as the system has long been abandoned by the manufacturers and I am not sure if such tapes actually worked as claimed. Some thirty years ago I bought such a tape and tried it out on my VHS machine. It looked like a conventional tape but with an opening to pour a small quantity of cleaning fluid. When I tried it, it made an horrendous scraping sound like sandpaper and thereafter the relatively new video machine would play as normal but now refused to record!

If you can safely access the innards of the TV (unlikely) you could perhaps clean the heads with a cotton bud and isopropyl alcohol, rather like with old cassette music players. It does seem like a terrible waste of materials - like so much 'modern' technology - but you may have to abandon the lot!

Hi Juliamoons,
Have a look at this...

How To Clean VCR Heads
https://youtu.be/Ew1T8p3wYXE

Wouldn't try the cotton bud myself.
I used to tear up a cigarette packet to clean them, as in the video, but with the power on.
Not recommended.
Also... You will use a cotton swab wet in alcohol to clean the erase, audio and control heads. The read/write reads are located on the drum and require a “special” procedure. Don’t use cotton swab on the drum or you can damage the VCR heads. We’ll show in details how to clean the heads.
https://www.hardwaresecrets.com/how-to- ... vcr-heads/
Navek

I have such a cleaning tape which you are welcome to have. However it comes with a load of video tapes that were recorded during the late 80's the 90's and the early 2000's, of british tv programs and films etc, probably about 1500 hours worth. If you take them you can have the cleaning tape. I am at Karsiyaka and you can ring if interested in the free package on 0533 859 3032. Mike

Thanks for all the advice and sorry I had not been back sooner to check. I have managed to order a VHS head cleaning tape from Amazon which has not arrived yet. When it does and if i have any success I will come back and post the outcome.

Thanks Mike but I have just managed to get rid of around 300 tapes. I kept back around 20 tapes of family interest lol xxx