Wet videotapes

[douger]

I got some water in the basement today and some tapes I had in cardboard boxes got wet. The water only got about 1 inch deep and the cardboard kept any sediment from getting to the videotapes. The wettest tapes were like you spilt an ounce or 2 of water on them. I was thinking of laying them upside down flat on a table so air could get the the tape to dry them out, with a fan to blow away any humidity. Does this sound like a good idea?

[1234567]

If water goes deeply, is too bad.

[redwudz]

Your method will work about as good as any, but water like that is never clean. Try to dry them out as best you can. There are also desiccants you can buy to remove the bulk of the residual moisture. Try a hardware store.

Take plenty of time to dry them. You can check for moisture by putting one of them in a sealed plastic bag overnight. There should be no sign of moisture on the inside of the bag. Test this before attempting to play them.

I would only try to play them on a VCR that is not valuable. Good luck.

[cyflyer]

I would open the videotapes, you know undo the five screws underneath, and remove the cover and lay them somewhere warm, like in the sun for a long while.

[Bjs]

You need the biggest bottle of vcr head cleaning fluid you can get a hold of .

Lay the tape out on a smooth flat surface ... then give each section of tape a light spray , give it few seconds before drawing a very soft lint free cloth down the length of the tape gently so as to avoid placing pressure on the soft tape , and give it a few more seconds to fully dry ... you need to do both sides .

As you work along , use a seperate lint free cloth to wipe the work surface clean before placing the next section on the work area .

There are machines that do this ... the cheap one's cause stretch if you try to work too fast ... and then there's the expensive unit's .

[The_Doman]

Some usefull information here:

http://www.videointerchange.com/damaged_tape.htm