Repair wrinkled VHS tapewithout cutting

[PorkChopWithPotatoes]

Hello. I'm copying my VHS tapes. Unfortunately, one cassette was damaged while rewinding. The tape was short (a few minutes), so the VCR sped up and wrinkled my tape. I am attaching photos of what it looks like inside the cassette.

Some youtube videos advices to just cut damaged parts, but The tape is very short (a few minutes), so there is nothing to cut.
Is there anything I can do to repair and straighten this tape without cutting?

If it was any important cassette, I would take it to a specialist. But it's just an old commercial, so I'm looking for a way to know what to do in this situation in the future.


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[Cornucopia]

Put it on an ironing board, put a piece of fabric on top to reduce the heat a bit, and iron it out.

But seriously (because the above could likely melt the tape), you're too late. Wrinkled is wrinkled. You can manually unroll it all (break off the hub tops if they are pinching the tape and keeping it from coming loose), and then properly reroll it onto a new, empty reel, and then put it into a vcr that doesn't eat tapes and run it through a few cycles of FF and RW, so it "packs" the tape nicely again with good even tension. Then let it sit for a while, which can help flatten it out better. But the wrinkles and creases will never go away completely after what has already happened.


Scott

[pandy]

Put it on an ironing board, put a piece of fabric on top to reduce the heat a bit, and iron it out.

But seriously (because the above could likely melt the tape), you're too late. Wrinkled is wrinkled.

Not if temperature will be bellow tape melting point (i.e. common case for synthetic fabric ironing on first star/dot).
And yes, wrinkled tape will stay wrinkled but it may wrinkled less and as such be (hypothetically) restored to shape where recording may be reconstructed.
Reconstruction of course may be time and resources costly so in overall beyond sane sense...

[dellsam34]

You can iron it to ease the pressure on the playback drum and maybe reduce RF noise a little bit but the content are lost forever and can never be recovered to a noise free state, the VCR's DOC tries to reduce RF noise by replacing the noisy lines with the good adjacent ones but in the case of severe tape damage there isn't much that can be done about it.

The other thing is that your VCR must have problems, The tell tale of eating tapes while fast forwarding or rewinding is worn out spindle brakes, When the spools are spinning fast and you hit stop both should stop immediately, if one continues to spin due to lack of brake pad material it will spill the tape and make a mess inside the VCR. Fix it or get rid of it.

[lingyi]

Even if you are able to iron out the wrinkles, there's a good chance you'll clog your videoheads because of the flaking oxide. Be prepared to clean your heads after playing the tape and hope no permanent damage has been done. *Replays the awful sound of videoheads playing a wrinkled tape* *SHUDDER*

[dellsam34]

The same sound a weed whacker makes when the strings hit a rock.

[lordsmurf]

The same sound a weed whacker makes when the strings hit a rock.

The sound of a slobbering dog, with long nails, running up inclined glass.

[PorkChopWithPotatoes]

Thanks for answers.
Luckily only first 1/3 of tape is damaged.

This is my additional VCR for copying less important cassettes.
I was very surprised when it's happened. It was working good before.

[barry25]

does this method really work i have a old wedding video of a family member on vhs tape been kept away for years other family members have handed it down over the years and then to me but the vhs tape is a little bit like this vhs tape above but it is wrinkled up at the bottom of the vhs tape. is there anyway to remove the wrinkles off the bottom of the vhs tape.