Mary has been listening to library books while she quilts and sews; some of the older books actually come on cassette tape and our tape players still work. The newer books come on CDs, but it seems the library hasn’t gotten into audio e-reader files yet. She actually prefers tapes, because she can simply stop the tape and restart it from the same place without any further intervention.
In any event, a recent tape stalled about 1/4 of the way through and refused to either rewind or fast forward.
Rather than returning it to the library, which I’m certain all previous borrowers did, I took the cassette apart. This is no big deal, I’ve done it many times before cassettes fell into the dustbin of history.
That made the failure quite obvious:
The bushing around one of the hub openings had completely fractured and come loose, jamming the tape hub in place.
A ring of solvent adhesive around both parts, a few minutes of clamping, and it’s all good again.
Don’t tell the library; they get tetchy about DIY repairs…
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 