The cassette tape pencil mystery finally solved!✏️

[@themaritimegirl]

You have become the Project Farm of vintage technology, and I am here for it.

[@_lun4r_]

Told you I was going to see a damn pinned comment! 🤬 And it's not even the comment I anticipated to be pinned

[@diamonddave45]

So are we going to start calling him "Todd" now? :)

[@I.____.....__...__]

We need a Project Farm of everything, he is the most thorough and scientific tester ever. 👍

[@manoflego123]

Oh hey, I love your channel! You taught me how to set up a home RF modulator to use with old portable TVs!

[@SockyNoob]

Hell yes

[@WJCarpenter]

When I first saw this video up, I thought, "This guy is nuts. I remember doing this all the time in the 70s and 80s." But after watching for a while, I remembered that pencils actually didn't work very well, and I typically switched to a BIC pen. As you demonstrated, the BIC pen works fine. I guess the idea of the pencil stuck in my brain even though I knew it didn't work. Kudos for chasing after this arcane topic.

[@northernplacecorporation]

Actually, both the Japanese Mitsubishi pencils and the BIC Crystal pens do work.

[@225Perfect]

I remember using a Bic pen lid for some reason. I suppose I'll have to test one out now.

[@northernplacecorporation]

@@225Perfect Oh. Yeah. I do get it.

[@Call-me-Al]

I used pencils and bic pens all the time, but I had a big collection of pencils and pens and some pencils were indeed way too skinny or rounded. I even had Mitsubishi pencils.

[@northernplacecorporation]

@@Call-me-Al Then those European Staedtler Noris pencils, and even American pencils cannot work in cassettes to wind them. One thing in common in equipment designed in Japan, from companies like Sony, Teac, and others, they're all from Japan, and the pencils that they sell in Japan are just about the right size, exactly like the BiC Crystal pen.

[@Perthshire]

This is THE definitve research article on taking up the tape slack on compact cassettes using pencils. Excellent!

[@lucasrem]

dirty skum nerdy people here, who need cassette tape?????? not able to use a pensile? FREAKS HERE!!!!!!!!

[@rastislavzima]

Hahaha! Exactly! 😂😂😂

[@aaronhayes8873]

Lmao

[@joshm264]

I've personally used it a couple times in a pinch, but if I'm ever winding it more than a couple times, I grab a Bic pen. Cool to know how this story ends!

[@free_gold4467]

I always used to use a Bic.

[@chargermopar]

I always used the disposable pens, one of the Bics had a squared off cap which fit perfectly. The fat black school pencils did work too.

[@rzeka]

I always just jammed my finger into the thing and spun the tape around

[@robshift]

Yes the Bic pen was always better than a pencil, just a little thicker than most pencils (in UK). It was very common as tapes would get caught up in the machine and need to be extracted from the mechanism and re-spooled. Pencils were usually too thin but could be used if necessary. You could also pinch the spool between a thumb and finger but was a very slow process.

[@orangejjay]

I just used my pinky finger.

[@Surestick88]

A standard Bic pen always worked for me. The transition to CDs was just happening as I was leaving highschool so I was in highschool for peak cassette. The best technique to rewind a cassette was to hold the pen and twirl it to spin the casette.

[@ВасилийКоровин-г9э]

But this guy still deserves credit for solving the mystery no one knows exists.

[@AlexanderBielowski]

Holding both ends of the pen resulted in the highest RPM.

[@PuertoGeekan]

The Bic pen lid actually fit tightly in the reel. You could then hold the pen and twirl the cassette around, winding it rather quickly.

[@mikeroadblock]

Yes !

[@k_tess]

'95 kid here. Yep a finger or BIC pen

[@davetaylor2088]

I did a lot of tape repairs for friends back in day (80s) and I remember using either a pencil or a pen to wind the tape on after 'surgery' was complete. They were loose and needed to be angled but the slippage was good as if you overtightened the tape on the spool my best friends tape deck in his Escort Panel Van would eat the tape and I'd have to fix it again. I actually had a repair kit with tiny scissors, screw drives and a selection of pencils and pens. Those were the days eh? Try fixing a corrupted mp3 file with sticky tape and a Norris Pencil...

[@MarkLada]

I can beat that.. Back in my days (90s) I did a lot of CD repairs for friends.. I would ride around with a disk doctor and spare batteries in my pockets.. The cd player in my buddies escort hatchback would skip like a girl scout playing hopscotch if the CD even had the slightest scratch on it.. We used the CDs to roll blunts on so all of them were scratched up.. I remember one night I had to resurface Tupac All Eyes On Me close to 20 times.. By the end of the night the CD was the size of a mini disc and only had 2 songs left on it.. I tell you what those were the days.. Driving around smoking blunts and resurfacing CDs all day long..

[@davetaylor2088]

@@MarkLada Damn, I laughed so hard reading this that some wee came out... thanks mate. Needed that.

[@RichardinSiam]

My friends mom thought we were using her tweezers as a roach clip when we were actually fixing a Dio tape. We showed her it was funny because the reaction was Ohhh!

[@MarkLada]

@@davetaylor2088 I hope that doesn't mean I have bladder control issues to look forward to in the 2030s.. I seem to be about ten years behind you mate..

[@MarkLada]

@@RichardinSiam I think I used my mom's tweezers as roach clips while listening to a Dio tape.. What album were you working on? Holy Diver was my favorite.. Rainbow in the Dark is still one of my favorite songs..

[@Chickenpatty878]

Never thought I'd be adding Japanese pencils to my wishlist

[@melty4204]

As a bonus Mitsubishi pencils are often considered some of the best in the world. I've always been partial to Blackwings but they won't wind cassettes.

[@LumocolorARTnr1319]

Before you know it you will only buy Japanese quality stuff.

[@jackroutledge352]

Japanese stationary in general is just next level. I'm a lawyer, and I always get just a little bit excited when we get correspondence from our Japanese associates, so I can enjoy the quality of their paper. Yes, I'm a little bit of a nerd.

[@ruslbicycle6006]

You don't actually need them for cassettes. The 'mystery' is a bit ridiculous. However, I have heard Japanese Stationary is amazing and well worth it so just buy it because it is good and keep using the pen lid or a bic or pencil at an angle or the eraser on all those cassettes you are still using. Maybe the 'mystery' idea came up because people are not collecting antique cassettes and reading manuals and trying to do it all correctly and maintain collectable status. Certainly back in the day 99% of tapes were not in their sleeves and just tossed around in a jumble and no one thought of them as precious or preservation quality. CDs and records were for the fancy types. Cassettes were the cheap version, mix tape, for the kids, throw it in a bag.

[@JeffWatchesYoutube]

That coffee cup unlocked a memory in me that I didn't realize I still had. I knew I recognized it but I couldn't place it. It was somewhere from my childhood. I showed my mom a still of your video with the coffee cup and she instantly recognized it! It turns out that this was her brother's (my uncle) coffee cup at my grandmas house. Everyone had a particular cup they would use when they went to visit her and that was his for years and years. When she passed away he made it a point to keep that cup. I was very young for all of this and it's amazing I remember it at all but boy did your video dig up some nostalgia for both me and my mom. Thank you! Keep doing what you do, I love your channel and have been a happy subscriber for years now!

[@caseysmith544]

My mom had until it broke due to getting unsafe rim chips from being old, that exact mug in the 1990's to almost end of 2010's. The Mug it was from the international Florist Association so somebody who left it in an apartment in the 1990's when parents were apartment managers had got flowers in the cup.

[@JeffWatchesYoutube]

@@caseysmith544 that is great information thank you Casey. I didn't know anything about the history of that mug specifically but I wouldn't mind picking up another one if I come across it at a thrift store or something.

[@Disappointed739]

I believe the cup is a Catholic women's group's takehome gift for participants in a program called de colores, a prayer retreat. The motif has been since culturally misappropriated by an unnamed alphabet soup movement.

[@caseysmith544]

@@JeffWatchesKZbin Yeah it says on bottom of cups ITF with the silhouette of god Mercury in helmet running with flowers. ITF is International Trade Florists with the Mercury god logo.

[@Phobos_Anomaly]

@@Disappointed739 Incorrect. The pride flag with rainbow colors was designed by US Army veteran Gilbert Baker by request of Harvey Milk and was first flown for the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade celebration on June 25, 1978. The first DeColores was held in Muskegon in 1980. The rainbow colors as used for the LGBTQ+ community predate DeColores, and thus, if anything, your claim is backwards. I can give you my sources through another medium if you wish, KZbin blocks my comment due to the links.

[@brianmoore6490]

I used pencils and pens to wind tapes all the time back in the day. I do remember some pencils not working well. You can put a small rubber band on the pencil to make it work better too. The rubber band will not go through the tape hole, but pressed against it creates enough friction to very easily turn the tape.

[@johnfleming4082]

Well, I never had an issues with that slippage. In fact, I thought it was great. It's a built in damage limiting slip clutch. Can't wind the tape too fast to cause any internal looping, or snap it when you get to the end. It just slipped when it got to tight. Perfect if you ask me. No issue, no mystery, and no damage.

[@mrpark7043]

Exactly

[@bryanwoods3373]

And then the slippage doesn't mean it's wrong or doesn't work. It's not supposed to be a precision tool, just get the job done. I wouldn't be surprised if they added the instructions because they saw people doing it and thought it was a good idea to add in. I bet some used the handles of forks and spoons too.

[@tombworld9012]

@@bryanwoods3373 Right. It didn't matter that it slipped a little bit sometimes and you had to give it a couple extra turns...if you had more than a couple of inches of slack to take up you were already doing something incredibly wrong. This video is a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good enough.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I had never noticed it was the Japanese manufacturers who pushed the pencil angle, fascinating that the Mitsubishi pencil is the same size as a Bic pen. I bet that feels great to use. Especially interesting that Bic were allegedly not sold in Japan - I wonder if the Japanese ball pens tend to be thinner than the pencils. That would be an interesting inversion - “why do these Americans say a pen works better, none of mine fit”. As for what you’re going to do with all these pencils… well, I guess you could just slowly use them over decades!

[@3DMegadoodoo]

It's not all about the size, but also the profile. More rounded corners = no contact with the teeth.

[@DirtyRobot]

Japanese have a very large selection of home made pen and mechanical pencil innovations. You might have heard of Pentel but Pilot and Zebra are very common, Tombo is aimed at High schoolers.

[@jjjacer]

@@DirtyRobot i have several japanese pens/mechanical pencils, write nice, the pens are refillable, and the mechanical pencil spins the tip during use and keeps wear even. and price aint bad. but then again japanese love there stationaries so i can see good pens/pencils would be wanted

[@Bobis32]

@@DirtyRobot god i love pilot G2's as they were the best "cheap" pens you could get when you were in school

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Hopefully Bobby Liu sees this video!

[@anonamatron]

Unfortunately, he was eaten by a wild Rhinoceros in 1998.

[@vwestlife]

*Correction:* Bobby Rivers was on VH1, not MTV. (Not that I watched either, since I didn't have cable TV when I was a kid!)

[@piranias]

you have to enlarge your pencil so that it becomes as great as the Japanese.

[@vwestlife]

@@_lun4r_ This comment is not pinned.

[@F40PH-2CAT]

Yeah, nobody outside Manhattan had cable until 1989 at the earliest. We got it in 1990, when I was 18.

[@_lun4r_]

@@vwestlife Fair enough, I have styles enabled, I can't tell.

[@MightyElemental]

This guy is now set for life with the number of pencils he just bought

[@jeffreywienhoff6412]

I was an expert at cassettes in the 70s. I remember pencils being slightly too small in diameter so I used a Bic pen. The cap was big enough to grab the cogs without slippage. I can repair most cassettes and 8 track cartridges. I believe the pencil slipping may be a way to keep anyone from winding the tape too hard at the end possibly breaking the tape.

[@BigCar2]

Bobby Liu had excellent taste! Thanks for solving the mystery.

[@mikkelbreiler8916]

Bobby Liu's Mix Tape: TDK SA90 A: Boy Book Of Love kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZqfGm32Bg9Zse68 Enola Gay OMD kzbin.info/www/bejne/mma7e2V9nrdpeNE Subculture New Order kzbin.info/www/bejne/rorCdqeOitethsk Photographic Depeche Mode kzbin.info/www/bejne/rZyuppivf8Z0ZqM Oh L'Amour Erasure kzbin.info/www/bejne/r5vHpWmmiLuAgck Rent Pet Shop Boys kzbin.info/www/bejne/bqeQm4tpmcSdqtE A Victory Of Love Alphaville kzbin.info/www/bejne/oX7bmmp_rMpqbs0 That Smiling Face Camouflage kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6fTfH-HZ5yNack Bizarra Love Triangle New Order kzbin.info/www/bejne/qpyyo2RodrajpLc B: A Different Story Peter Schilling kzbin.info/www/bejne/sIuWlHuuhJ5seck Spiralling Erasure kzbin.info/www/bejne/oaG1aJVoZdNjppY It Doesn't Matter Depeche Mode kzbin.info/www/bejne/sJerhWyNnqZ3l6c Wonderful Life Black kzbin.info/www/bejne/q2K9oHucf790eaM We Close Our Eyes Go West kzbin.info/www/bejne/n3ykmJykfLujjKs April Skies Jesus And Mary Chain kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4XEfJdnbpqGf6c Just Like Heaven Cure kzbin.info/www/bejne/pGTRgZx4ls5pbK8 Only You Yaz kzbin.info/www/bejne/bYDEZ2WpipmChKM Forever Young Alphaville kzbin.info/www/bejne/qmK3lHd-p9CEj8k Always On My Mind Pet Shop Boys kzbin.info/www/bejne/rXXIZ2N5l66Unck

[@testcardsandmore1231]

Hello mister Car, nice to see you here.

[@steved3702]

Just a touch too modern for my taste. Also needs more Australian content! Looking at one of my old mix tapes the other day resulted in my calling up McCartney's 'Take it Away' on YT, though.

[@TheLaptopLagger]

Fancy seeing you round these parts

[@SockyNoob]

Yo it's Big Car

[@jamesdye4603]

Never really gave this much thought. I can't remember what I used most back in the day, my finger or a pencil. My take now is that it doesn't really matter if a pencil fits perfectly because you are just taking up slack, not rewinding an entire 90 minute tape. Really interesting trivia about the Japanese pencils being thicker than American or European ones.

[@Dave01Rhodes]

I definitely remember using a bic pen back in the day

[@katbryce]

@@vardekpetrovic9716 Those Staedtler pencils are the exact same ones we use in the UK.

[@himlaif0327]

Duh! There were many Bic and similar cheap ballpoint pens that did the job. I never read the part of those manuals, it was more of common sense.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

Exactly, it's a non-issue.

[@benjaminrockwell5715]

For a fast rewind you put a Bic pen through, hold the pen and spin the cassette around like a hula hoop. This even works pretty well with a pencil because the centrifugal force makes the cassette cog grab the pencil better.

[@FoxerTails]

I love how majority of people are still in denial over this. lol I think you provided a very logical reason. Though to be fair, you only tried one Japanese pencil. Perhaps a bigger selection of Japanese pencils is needed to verify if they always work. But the logistics of buying multiple Japanese pencils for the sake of proving a point might be pushing it.

[@r.p.channel3021]

Two of the Japanese pencils with a high market share are "Mitsubishi Pencil" and "Tombow Pencil", and in my experience both are the perfect thickness for rewinding cassette tapes. (I actually used them to rewind cassettes when I was young.)

[@SockyNoob]

Boomers being boomers

[@richardernst7421]

I think he already showed he's immune to the concept of "pushing it" by recording and editing an 11 minute video on the subject.

[@croquette_fr]

"|...]Japanese pencils for the sake of proving a point[...]" : did you accidentally make a joke with the word "sake" (Japanese beverage)??

[@PabSungenis]

We are in denial because WE DID IT from the ‘70’s through the ‘90’s. It was especially useful when we needed to splice or repair a tape. It’s only a mystery to those who haven’t talked to anyone over 50.

[@Bugstomper2]

You have to use the 'bic crystal' pen, in a vertical postion. So your holding it verticaly upward. Then put the cassette reel through the top part of it, while 'bic crystal' pen stays vertical. Start spinning it slowly, until the momentum makes it grab the cassette reels 'teeth' and begins to spin around the pen. Keep the momentum going, and you'll get to the end of the tape. The whole purpose of doing this was because you wanted to hear a track again or a side again, and you didn't want to waste the batteries on your boom box or walkman, forwarding and rewinding. You'd get more play time out of the batteries that way.

[@rachelsullivan2926]

This video should win an award for detailed information we no longer need, but is still good to know.

[@TattiePeeler]

Always a bic. I did this a good few times to take up slack. Staedtler biros slipped, blunted edges and slightly smaller.

[@capolaya]

Faber Castell 033 pens do the trick as well.

[@pmsrodrigues]

Precisely. I used BIC pens for my ZX Spectrum tape games.

[@beau-urns]

As a PhD and “scientist”. I really appreciate your attention to research methods in your empirical analyses. I’m not joking, you nail it every time

[@joeminpa6705]

?????? wouldn't the amount of tape also come into play? Wouldn't that need to be explored? 90 minute cassettes were only sold as blank tape. You also have 60 minutes and production tapes that were only as long as the LP. This makes a significant difference in drag. Also, manufacturer of the cassette comes into play as more dubious tapes may have a different drag coefficient. There also may be a difference in density due to metal, chrome oxide, or regular magnetic tape.😋

[@TheSimoc]

@@joeminpa6705 Nope, everything else is irrelevant from now on, as we just know that "ordinary" means Japanese, we will succeed pencil-spooling any length and material of C-casette tape ;)

[@PlutoniumBoss]

This definitely matches up with my experiences back in the day. Pencils were hit or miss. Pens were better. What I found most successful was using the cap end of a pen, it would grip well against the ends of the spool teeth instead of trying to find something hexagonal that fits.

[@anarky4711]

Every tape in my 70-80s hair metal collection has had the cap end of a Bic stuck in it at least twice.

[@HorologicRannygazoo]

@@anarky4711 Yep, cap end of Bic pens and Scotch tape was my repair kit of choice. . .

[@charlesdye8367]

Yep

[@Kelnx]

Yep, used pencils, pens, even the finger (and sometimes got a sore finger for it). But the pen cap seemed to be the best tool for the job.

[@craigrussell3062]

When I was a kid in the 80s, I just used my fingers to wind cassettes. But then in the 90s as I became a teenager, they started to get harder to fit in. I figure the tape manufacturers must have been gradually making the holes smaller and smaller.

[@Ninjametal]

My pinky fit then, and now

[@zach.0]

The same with pants sizes! They shifted the numbers!

[@xanx1234]

Excellent, you've made my Saturday morning ... I particularly liked "what the British would call a cheeky git" at 7:06 and the instructions about the "dang cassette" and "If it's still friggin broke".

[@warhamsterful]

Bic pen and whirling it round my head to rewind to save battery on the bus.. oh yeahhhh.. memories.

[@timothyfrisch3707]

What to do with the pencils? Sell the Japanese ones on ebay as cassette tape repair tools 😉

[@AbdAbdAbdAbd]

and for the rest of them you should just become a door-to-door pencil salesman.

[@Hysteria98]

Not on Amazon though, they'll kick him off the store for such a good idea and remarket it themselves as their own Amazon Basics like they've done before, lol.

[@nickwallette6201]

ooh.. a repair kit... with parts imported from Japan! Buy it now! Buy it now!

[@jamesparker8231]

Next week's episode "what was a pencil used for" lol

[@Tore_Lund]

When a pencil was at hand, but you had to slant it slightly to engage the teeth, otherwise my pinky did just fine ( my fingers were smaller then). Also grateful to learn that Japanese pencils are thicker!

[@robert8192]

I have always placed 1-inch of scotch tape on the pencil.. Making it larger..

[@yandan7010]

I'm sure I remember getting any hexagonal pencil to work by way of centrifugal force whilst spinning the tape round a pencil while holding both ends with each hand.

[@cyndicorinne]

By the way, your channel totally resonates with me growing up in the 70s and 80s and loving working with technical things even as a child. You ask a lot of the same questions I did (and do)! Love it! ✅

[@maryjordan7649]

I taught school for 30 years....and saw many of my students doing this successfully. I never had to. This is a funny video....my pencil of choice was the Dixon but what pencil the students used I didn't pay any attention to. I didn't know this was an issue but your video brought back great memories. Donate your leftover pencils to your local public school!😊

[@honestguy7764]

Thy ised a bic fountain pen

[@ВасилийКоровин-г9э]

He'll need this pencils to solve other pencil related mysteries.

[@Left-Earth]

I've always used a *Bic pen not a pencil.* *I hold the pen upright and spin the tape on the pen, instead of turning the pen manually.* _The weight of the tape, gravity, and centripetal forces do most of the work._ ✨

[@themirrorsofmymind]

*HOLY CRAP! I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE!*

[@Left-Earth]

👍

[@FranciscoBurrola]

This!

[@fdre3wsd]

Every put your fingers on either side and spin it like a wheel, takes some nail action too

[@Smokr]

The moment I saw the title card, I thought to myself, "You had to use a Bic or Papermate pen with the cap on it. Not pencils. Am I this old?" That Officemate pencil you used was perfect! It slips when the tape gets tight so you don't stretch it or break it. Perfect!

[@EricManzane]

this is the comment I was expecting, BTW at least for me the Papermate was superior to the Bic

[@carman5567_]

I just use my Dad's old car keys (It's just a spare) and put it through the little ridges on the spools and spin it. It works way more better than a pencil.

[@geoffscott265]

Hi, I'm British and I can confirm that we would call that guy (at 7:04) a "cheek git"

[@battra92]

I like how you didn't attempt to pronounce Staedtler. By the way, those Japanese pencils are fantastic. Like a lot of things, the standard issue in Japan beat the standard issue of a lot of other countries. They just have much greater expectations for common things, I guess.

[@stoojinator]

I often wondered as we used to have them issued to us in primary school. I think it is stetler unless being German they do something different with the AE and DT in the word.

[@pauljs75]

It's also clear when Pentel or Zebra would make an inexpensive mechanical pencil that could go through many leads and erasers and work great for over 20 years, but a Bic or Pentec wouldn't be worth the bother and trashed after the first lead that it came with was gone. (Something about having good materials and tolerances in the advance and ferrule makes all the difference.) The Japanese are something crazy when it comes to stationary implements in a good way.

[@MrDuncl]

@@pauljs75 I have used the same Pentel Sharplet plastic mechanical pencil everyday at work for at least a decade. p.s. Do you realise that the Japanese company Sharp was named after their first product. The Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil ?

[@stitchfan_8290]

All the best stuff is made in japan.

[@davidg4288]

@@stitchfan_8290 There's a story, just a legend I'm sure, that a Swiss machinist made the smallest screw ever and sent it to Japan. The Japanese machinist drilled a hole in it, threaded it, and sent it back.

[@RetroPlus]

I love the sheer depth you went into solving this mystery

[@eightsprites]

Funny enough, I used to rewind tapes using a pen back in the day. Or maybe it was a bic pen, or a paperclip.. or a pen tilted. or just my finger. When I think of it, it was whatever I had available at the time.

[@fclefjefff4041]

It isn't necessary to blurt something out just for the sake of blurting something out

[@sideburn]

Same here. The pen was much better. Or one of those little hand winders.

[@dont.beknown5622]

I remember doing this. Some pencil makes were larger and some just wouldn't catch. Bic pen's worked well. We did it all the time.

[@TangoCharlieAlpha]

I'm 50, and as a kid in the 80's I used (preferably) a ballpoint pen to stick in the hole and then twirled the tape around and around and it worked great to rewind a tape. Some players just didn't rewind fast, or were broken. It was just what you did.

[@donpalmera]

Would be interesting to prove the Japanese pencils are thicker like there being a JIS standard for pencils..

[@8_Bit]

Excellent work! When I showed using a pencil to wind a tape in the C64 vinyl easter egg video a few years ago (in which I gave you a shout-out, coincidentally) I got a lot of comments about how I should be using a BIC pen and was really surprised that this was a thing at all. I did wonder about measuring the thickness of pencils, particularly wondering about older Canadian-made pencils that we had in school, but never got around to it. I'm glad you did this important investigation.

[@Ramog1000]

the thing is sure a bic-pen works better. But using a pencil usually does the trick too. I might work less good but still accepable to fix a unspooled tape.

[@twocvbloke]

Be careful with those Mitsubishi pencils, they might leak oil everywhere over your desk... :P

[@greenbriar07]

I always used pencils to wind cassettes back for my walkman, but I held the pencil close to the end, put the sharpened *tip* between two of the teeth and spun it like crazy...

[@doamaker6674]

This has to be a joke right? We only used pencils or the ideal thing was a big pen with the cap because of the little pocket clip to go inside to take up the slack if the tape deck had spilled out the tape all over the inside of it. We didn't sit around winding the manually because that was a waste of time we were just trying to fix it so the tape didn't get ruined.

[@BillAE91]

Finally! The question has been answered! Although BIC pens worked good for me over the decades, never would have imagined that Japanese pencils were thicker though🤣

[@kubiakWU]

This was really interesting. I want to get some Japanese pencils now. You can sell the excess pencils as branded cassette repair kits.

[@YouTube4Rudy]

Lol!

[@piranias]

those who said that their pencils in Europe always rewind the tape do not check their statements for factuality.

[@BacktoTranceCassettes]

I love cassettes! Because it was on cassettes that I recorded the "Trance Mutation" radioshows, which shaped my musical taste!

[@rayoflight62]

I was a sort of musicassette buff in the '80s. I recorded all my LPs on good tape cassettes, and listened them from there. This had multiple purposes; first, as I didn't use sapphire styluses but only diamond ones ( sapphire lasts for 50 hrs, diamond for 500), this represented a saving. Also, while recording, I applied various equalisation a and compression levels, so to optimise the media for reproduction on the type of speakers and the environment I was usually in. Above all, I could listen my LP music on the move. I mostly used D90, SA90 and C120 cassettes, avoided Dolby, and used metal tapes for wide dynamic music (Beethoven 5th, Child in Time, etc) and stuff I wanted to preserve. Metal cassettes and the tape deck to record them were expensive, but worth every penny; they still play brilliant trebles 40 years later; try that with a modern flash player: those from 10 years ago - are all gone; not the battery, but the flash memory itself. So, where it leave me with cassettes and pencils? I never touched those cheap cassettes without the various tape safeguards used by TDK or BASF; nor I had toy cassette players, or players which had less than 50 gr/cm torque on the take-up reel: those were the ones which caused tape slacks of various degree. This said, I never used a pencil to rewind a cassette. Since many toy cassette players had a FF button but not a RWD button, in a couple of occasions I had to rewind a C30 tape completely, and I used (we all used) a BIC pen. I also had a cassette tape winder from Sony, various electronic cassette-sized head demagnetiser, a dynamometer cassette, head cleaner cassette, tape speed reference cassettes (they had a 1000 Hz tone recorded on it, so you can use a frequency counter to adjust tape speed to 4.78 cm/s). Yes, I repaired cassette recorder / player and other Hi-Fi as an hobby...

[@TheComputerGuy96]

In my childhood I always used my little finger to fix cassette tapes.

[@DerekPower]

In thinking about this, it makes sense that Japanese pencils are as a thick as they are as they most likely would have been a continuation of the writing pens (not the same as calligraphy as you have varying brushes for the various stroke types), which is suited for their writing system. I would be curious to see how any of the kanji characters would have looked written on these pencils and in different line heights. I can't imagine using it on say: an employment application, which tends to have tiny spaces to fill in the information. Questions lead to more questions I guess =D

[@steved3702]

My thought, too. A work visit to Tokyo some years ago had me admiring the range of writing implements available for sale.

[@devikwolf]

This is exactly the kind of content I subscribe for. Your attention to detail for a weird and, ultimately, unimportant mystery is exactly the sort of thing I often do and thought I was a weirdo for doing.

[@emmettturner9452]

I grew up with compact cassettes and 8-tracks, but was mocked for publicly failing an “age test” meme that expected me to know the relationship between a pencil and a cassette. I’d also never wound one that way. I guess I was just the only one on that forum who remembered correctly. :)

[@WyrdieBeardie]

Hard hitting journalism. From personal recollection, I do not know if some pencils worked better or if some tapes worked better with pencils. You did have to do it at an angle though. But I used both pencils and fingers. It depended on the amount that was pulled out, and how much tension was felt. If there was tension and you cared about the tape, it was back to fingers.

[@rhythmparasite1916]

As soon as you showed the casette deck manuals my first thought was "so are japanese pencils bigger then?". Good thing you tested it because otherwise it would have been stuck in my head for the rest of the day... Great video too; didn't leave anything unanswered :))

[@charbokh]

Woow. Mystery has been solved. Only the Japanese pencils will work to wind up a cassette. I've never used a pencil for that exact reason. They don't work, they slip. I always used the old reliable Bic Crystal ball point pen. We might need to try out pens to see which one is the most suitable for the job. THanks for the video. Really interesting.

[@zipzip8239]

i always used a pencil tilted at an agle. it worked good enough.

[@TheStanHill]

You should take these pencils on a trip to their home state - Pencil-vania!

[@vwestlife]

But Rhode Island is famous for you!

[@AlexanderBielowski]

The main reason to rewind tapes manually in my time was battery saving in walkmans, and we did this quite a lot. I remember that not all pens worked equally, because I remember that we borrowed each other's pens in school to rewind manually. I think the classical, clear plastic BIC ball pens worked best.

[@fubarlife7776]

Bic pen or Mitsu-bishi pencil. I always used a Bic pen.

[@laurensa.1803]

"Big In Japan" was not just a song by Alphaville...

[@lasskinn474]

dunno about bic in japan but it's pretty big in asia. big in japan was an old phrase by the time alphaville wrote their song.

[@kubiakWU]

There's a fun cover by Guano Apes, too!

[@datassetteuser356]

Respect for going through (and buying) all these different pencils just to get to the bottom of this. Thanks a lot for that! Always glad to see new content on you channel! Best regards!

[@vidtech2630]

It could have something to do with NOT wanting to advertise a certain brand of pens. As in the PHILLIPS manual.Also BIC pens were never available for sale in Japan.

[@3DMegadoodoo]

BIC expanded into the Japanese market in 1965. While I'm sure it COULD have been just to sell lighters and disposable razors and whatnot, why would they not also have sold the biros?

[@vidtech2630]

@@3DMegadoodoo yes , but not the Bic Cristal pen , as pointed out in a video by Retro Core from Japan.

[@MrDuncl]

@@3DMegadoodoo To much competition from domestic suppliers ? I recall reading that Commodore were doing well selling computers in Japan until NEC released a machine. The everyone started buying the NEC as it was from a brand people knew and trusted.

[@davidg4288]

Especially since BIC made cassette decks. At least a friend of mine had one, it was made in Germany. If that was even the same BIC that made the pens.

[@Plumjet09]

My dad swears that he used to rewind tapes with a pencil, bought a tape to prove him wrong. Keep you guys posted

[@Plumjet09]

He also says that you have to load it eraser side first and that you shouldn’t follow the diagram in the manual

[@Plumjet09]

Forgot to update, when presented with the tape he turned it the exact same way you demonstrated.

[@fixedfocusmediaofficial]

Slightly off topic but cleaning the capstan and pinch rollers is often overlooked. I clean everything that comes in contact with the tape in all of my decks. You would be amazed by how dirty the pinch roller can be.

[@RealEpikCartfrenYT]

I have some colored pencils left from when I was little and guess what, they are made in France, triangonal and they don't slip when I use the, them to fast forward or rewind tapes by hand. Also, I never knew Mitsubishi would make pencils

[@Eddies_Bra-att-ha-grejer]

Mitsubishi is one of Japan's largest conglomerates, they make a lot of stuff.

[@planetX15]

@@Eddies_Bra-att-ha-grejer I've always thought that they were just a car manufacturer, it took me a while to realise that they (or did) produce phones and stationery too

[@ParallelSyntax]

That “Paper-Mate” logo is definitely of the very earliest late 90s but likely early to mid 2000s. That is their current logo design and it didn’t look like that more than 20 or so years ago. I think another reason they suggested pencils more is because they do slip. You don’t want something that’s going to suddenly stop because if you was over zealous, there could be W chance you might rip or pull out the leader tape from the opposite spool. But that is assuming that it’s a suggestion from outside Japan.

[@MultiMidden]

Dude, I've got some really bad news for you, the late 90s and 00s is now 20 or so years ago.

[@ParallelSyntax]

@@MultiMidden Typo.

[@MusicalBox]

"As long as you stick to using good quality properly maintained equipment and good quality tape, you'll probably never have to deal with a cassette tape that as come unspooled." To be honest, back in the days, the only place I had to deal with an unspooled cassette tape was in the car. I guess it had to do with temperature changes and condensation that made the tape stick to the playheads in some conditions. So when removing the cassette from the player, you'd find a small (or big) loop of tape coming out of the cassette.

[@tenmillionvolts]

It was usually due to the eject mechanism which was a violent clunk in most car stereos. This shook the spools which loosened the tape

[@pckennedy1723]

The pre-recorded cassettes were the worst offenders for coming unspooled. Apparently the OP doesn't know that, so the advice to use quality cassettes is useless. Also, we used pencils A LOT when we needed to rewind some slack... and the way you do it is to press the side of the pencil against the inner hub. It was never meant to be a perfect fit or for somebody to try to rush it in like the pencil was made for the job. Geez. Ask your grandmother. She'll know!

[@dashcamandy2242]

Agreed. Many car stereos had the combination FF/Eject "lever," so as you were beginning to Eject, the pinch roller pulled back but the "lever" you're pressing is moving the tape transport through the FF speed briefly as the tape is being pushed out. (Holy cow that was awkward to describe... Sorry, I can't think of a better way to phrase that right now.)

[@trybunt]

I love the old school transitions. Feels like I'm learning how to treat others with respect back at school in the 90s

[@invisiblue3212]

The amount of effort that went into making this video is applaudable. Sourcing all those manuals, researching and purchasing/hunting down all those types of pencils, just to make this video. Thanks my guy, this was entertaining and informative👍👏👏👏

[@TheEpicOne007]

this is huge news. great work!

[@jasonschubert6828]

We used to use BICs back in the day. If anything of course, if tapes unspooled they would always do so inside the case, and would just wind back on as soon as you pressed play!

[@masterargento90x]

I never used pencils. I used more pens to do that, since being plastic they were harder, and on more than one occasion it helped me unlock cassettes where the tape was hard.

[@SlumberBear2k]

that's pretty crazy that for generations people have been frustrated by this and you figured it decades later.

[@jimkirk4357]

Wow. I'm 62 and did this with cassette tapes with relative ease for years. My late father would've called this guy a PROJECT MAKER.

[@LostInTech3D]

it's always been pens, I remember using pencils but having to tilt them at a really acute angle to get them to work, this was in the 80s. You looked for a bic pen first. If you want to increase the research level I can recommend contacting the pencil museum here in the UK. 😂

[@Crlarl]

There's a pencil museum?

[@alkestos]

I was so ready to get disappointed about the Japanese pencil but alas, vwestlife delivers! P.S. I always used to use my pinky finger.

[@wilkes85]

A Bic disposable mechanical pencil works! I just tried it. Also, that Officemate pencil would keep someone from tightening the reel too much so there's that lol

[@alphabeets]

I thought for sure you were going to travel to Europe to try the European pencil on Bobby’s mix tape. 😂

[@alphabeets]

The funniest part is you buying the dual pencil cassette repair kit from eBay. You were probably the only person in the world that bought it from that seller. Imagine what the seller was thinking of you! 😂

[@TopSpot123]

Excellent video. Since pencils didn't work well, I always used a simple popsicle stick. It fits right in between the sprocket teeth. You couldn't finger twist it easily, but you could easily spin the tape around it, like you did near the end.

[@BravoCharleses]

Mr. Liu has great taste. Thanks for making the playlist!

[@robsonbass6058]

That was your most enjoyable video yet! I sold hi-fi between 1976 and 1982, and had a Sony TC-30 cassette deck way back in ~1970 when all my friends had 8-track. I was a budding audiophile back then (16 years old) and could not stomach the idea of changing tracks in the middle of a song. And yes, I considered the bic pen the "gold standard" for manually winding tapes. But I had a lot more pencils laying around. I just tilted them at an angle. I'm getting ready to pull out all my tapes when I get the music room completed.

[@MrHunterseeker]

Thing is, you are using name brand pencils. Schools supplied cheap pencils to their students in the 80s. The cheapest bidder. I actually forget the name brand of pencils we used, but they all had to be #2 for testing purposes, and I am positive all the pencils we used back in the 80s in school worked on casette tapes, because I remember winding many tapes with penicils because I wore out so many Sony Walkmans in my youth, I loved the sound of those old walkmans, just like how I loved the sound of the old full floor model record players and a decent car sound system. (My buddy in the 90s used to go to car stereo competitions and he had a ridiculous truck that would shake your insides with the bass, if you had a shirt that wasn't buttoned up on, it would actually blow your shirt up if you were standing beside his open door. He showed us all the amps and speakers he had in the bed of his truck and I think he said he was pushing 5,000 watts (been 30 years, though, so I would like to see what they do now)

[@AlexAlexon3897]

Brilliant! I feel less "freaky" for having used Bic Biros for 42 years now. Thank you. 🙂

[@sali-ali]

I always used a pen and sometimes a fingernail if I don't have a pen and all the pens were working at least the ones in Bulgaria.

[@wdavem]

I remember 80's and 90's pencil destruction methods other students knew. Got rather elaborate, with rubber bands to store energy... enough power to break glass!

[@theol1044]

Thank you so much for conducting these extensive tests and making this video! Now I finally have some proof to show to those people who don't believe me the pencil thing does not work and has never worked (outside of Japan, as we now know), like my sister who gave me that 'cassette & pencil' t-shirt as a Xmas present.

[@theol1044]

BTW, (a) I've always used the tip of an ordinary retractable ballpoint pen. While not hexagonal, it works perfectly with a little friction. Not many BIC pens around here, and I find them annoying anyway b/c of the cap. And (b) new pencils *always* come pre-sharpened here in Germany. new pencils almost always come pre-sharpened here in Germany.

[@OverlandOne]

I had a cassette deck in my car in the 1970's and, just about every tape I took out when I was done playing had a few inches of slack hanging out. I kept a pencil (a bic pen worked great too) right under the console so I could fix it quickly. I never had any issues doing it. Maybe I instinctively pushed it up with my index finger to engage it in the top part of the gear while turning...not sure but I certainly did not have to angle it like you show in the video. I never had a pencil or a pen not turn it to easily take up the slack.

[@ModricoTV]

Gotta love the Techmoan and LGR clips in a VWestlife video.

[@Vulpec]

At the beginning of the video, I predicted it was Japanese pencils, and it turns out to be right! Very interesting to know, and I'm surprised it never got updated in later cassette deck manuals, since it probably only would've taken a couple years for someone to figure it out.

[@CptJistuce]

Probably no one ever noticed, because no one was using pencils to rewind tapes. I know I always just jammed my pinky finger in there.

[@CasualSpud]

Thanks for clearing that up for us. #TeamBic 👍

[@AlexA-bn2wb]

My dad had a tape hand winder, much easier to use!

[@MikeSchmidt969]

The way I did it back then was you hold the pencil point up, drop the tape onto it, and spin the tape around the pencil by gently giving the pencil a little twirl. The force of the tape spinning holds the sprocket on the pencil. Takes only a few seconds to wind a tape.

[@saintly2k]

I don’t know which video exactly but Techmoan once said that he heard that pencils in Japan are slightly bigger than those in other parts of the world. Not sure if it was before or after this video 😅

[@Markimark151]

I mostly use a Bic pen for tapes, also does anyone know why some cassettes don’t play even though the tape moves with the pencil trick, the tape deck isn’t playing the tape, even though it’s properly spooled!

[@darrenhorvath5801]

"Cheeky Git" love it - absolutely correct there. Great video 👍🏻 (from the UK)

[@damian9303]

Yes, I remember hearing you make mention of this on one of your other videos. The fact that there’s sellers on eBay that are profiting off this ‘myth’ within the states and selling pencils as “cassette repair kits” humors me

[@redcrafterlppa303]

For Germany I can say that you can often find 2 sizes of pencils. One small and one extra large. The large one doesn't even fit in a cassette. You need to use the tip. The large ones are commonly used by students age < 10. So many families have or still have some of these.

[@wvscififan]

I seem to recall I used the metal eraser holder on the pencil as it was more likely able to catch and hold. I probably used a little bit of an angle too. I don't ever remember having issues winding/rewinding, but then that was a while ago.