You've seen the memes and you've seen the debunking:
"Personally i never saw anyone doing this back in the day" "No,
i've never used a pencil to wind a cassette" But what's the real truth?
How could so many people and so many companies be wrong about winding a cassette tape using a
pencil? Are we just the weird ones who can't get it to work as advertised? Well, let's find out!
first of all i can't blame the people making the memes showing a pencil being used to wind the
cassette tape because they're just following the advice given in the majority of owner's manuals
for cassette tape recorders and players for example this pioneer deck from 1974
it says right here "to take up the slack use a pencil as shown
inserting it at the center of one of the spools and turning it in the direction
indicated" and in this panasonic stereo system manual from the early 1980s
it says "should the tape develop a slack tighten the tape tension by lightly turning the hub of
the cassette with an ordinary pencil" and in this manual for a sanyo stereo system from 1986 it says
"use a pencil as shown to take up the slack of one of the reels" also jvc in this manual from 1997
it says "remove slack by winding the tape of a pencil" and this pioneer deck from 1996
they even give it a little cartoon character saying "turn the pencil to take up the tape slack"
but sometimes they do hint at alternative options such
as this manual from a 1994 panasonic stereo system
it says "use a pencil or similar object to take up the slack" here's the manual for a denon cassette
deck and they say "take up any slack with a pencil or your fingertip" and the manual for this radio
shack cassette player hints at how you can get it to work by tilting the pencil at an angle
they say "it is a good idea to wind the tape a few turns using a pencil
inserted and tilted slightly" unfortunately philips who invented the cassette tape can't
help us solve this mystery because the manual for my philips FC 931 cassette deck
doesn't mention anything about manually winding up cassette tape to take up the slack here's the
maintenance section with advice about cassette tapes and it doesn't mention anything about it
the winner for the only company to actually mention using a bic
pen for winding a tape is in this 1975 scotch cassette tape recording
guide they say "wind on the leader tape with a hexagonal pen or pencil"
when i showed in a video that trying to use a pencil to wind a cassette tape
just doesn't work right i got a flood of comments from people insisting that i was either using the
wrong kind of pencil or that older pencils from back when they were a kid were thicker
and it just the new ones made today that are too thin and don't work right or people saying that
the pencils in their part of the world work fine and it's just american pencils that don't work
so with that in mind i collected all the old pencils i could find some of which
date back to the 1970s and 1980s and i bought not only what is claimed to be the world's best pencil
dixon ticonderoga i also bought these noris pencils which i believe are the
most popular kind used in the uk and europe and also these mitsubishi pencils from japan
these are all the reference standard pencils i'm going to use but it's also important to have
a reference standard cassette and for that i'm going to use this tdk sa 90 from the late 1980s
not only because it contains bobby liu's awesome mixtape of new wave music
we have omd new order erasure pet shop boys alphaville yaz depeche mode lots of great music
on this and bobby was a smart guy not only because he used high quality tape with noise reduction
he also thought of copyrights he wrote "copyright courtesy of bobby liu" i'd love to play bobby
liu's mixtape for you but instead i'll let VH1's bobby rivers explain to you why tdk is
the reference standard of cassette tapes "most cassette deck manufacturers use tdk tape as the
reference for their factory set bias levels so if you stick to tdk you'll get great sound quality"
is there any truth to the claim that older pencils were thicker and it's just the new
ones made today that are too thin and don't work right? to find out i got out my dial caliper and
i measured the thickness of all the pencils in this mug and the thickest one i could find is this
officemate pencil probably from the '80s or '90s and the thinnest one i can find is not a new one
made today instead it's this paper mate classic probably also from the '80s or '90s then i took a
brand new dixon ticonderoga pencil and i measured its thickness and it's almost exactly halfway
between the thickest pencil of the group this officemate and the thinnest one this paper mate
so here's the brand new ticonderoga pencil i haven't even sharpened it yet
and if i try to wind the tape inserting it straight in like all those pictograms showed
it doesn't work i have to hold it at a pretty extreme angle and even then it slips a lot then if
i take the thickest pencil of the whole group this office mate hey look at that it actually works at
least going forward but what happens if we try to wind backwards and we reach the end of the tape
you can see it just slips so it just barely big enough to fit the reel
going forward and even then you can see it it slips sometimes so it's
not perfect i mean it's better than the new one but it's still not perfect
and i know some people are just gonna say well maybe this pencil isn't old enough after all i
showed some manuals from the 1970s so here i have this ibm commitment to excellence pencil
as probably from the '60s or '70s because it predates their striped logo
so let's try that and it just slips it's even worse than the officemate pencil
this one actually kind of works most of the time but this very old ibm pencil doesn't
i also happen to come across an ebay listing for what is advertised as a cassette tape repair kit
that simply contains two pencils and when you look at the instructions it's clear that the seller is
just being what the british would call a cheeky git but let's humor them i zoomed in close on
the photo and i can see that they're providing amazonbasics pencils so maybe there's something
special about amazonbasics pencils that makes them work better than other ones i've showed
they come pre-sharpened which is unusual so here we go do they work for winding the tape
they kind of work a little bit maybe a little bit better but it still mostly slips if i try
to wind it this way yeah you can see it just slipping maybe they're a little bit
thicker than these ticonderoga pencils but not enough to make them work right
and then i thought what about a golf pencil because some of these manuals show a very short
pencil being used like one of these so here we go a golf pencil does it work and the answer is
no it just slips and besides that goes against what panasonic said when they
specifically recommended using an ordinary pencil
let's try pencils which are ordinary in other parts of the world
for example this noris pencil made in germany very popular in europe in the uk
and nope it just slips so far even the best one i found doesn't work nearly as well as using a bic
pen because of this once you reach the end of the tape it just stops it doesn't slip at all
but have you noticed one thing in common with all these companies that insist you can use a pencil
to wind a cassette tape like jvc tiac panasonic pioneer sanyo denon they're all japanese companies
what about the pencils sold in japan? maybe they're the ones that work as
advertised in all these manuals and when these products were being brought over to the us
and these manuals are being translated into english they just didn't bother double checking
it with an american pencil because they thought the japanese engineers designed this equipment
so they should know what they're talking about
here we go with the mitsubishi pencil
imported from japan is it finally going to work as advertised to wind the cassette tape
properly without slipping and without needing to insert it at an angle
hey so far so good now let's try going the other way and see what happens when
we reach the end of the tape and look at that it just stops it doesn't slip at all
so finally we have the answer to the mystery it's the japanese pencils that are thicker and work
as advertised in all those memes and all those manuals
that's what they're talking about japanese pencils but when it comes to american and european pencils
nope doesn't work they're thinner and that leaves us resorting to either having to insert it at an
odd angle which even then doesn't work that well or trying alternative
writing implements like the bic pen which works just as well as the japanese pencil
so finally the mystery has been solved
more importantly 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 has come unspooled
as i'll let bobby rivers explain to you "not only does dirt mess up the sound
it's also the number one cause of tape jamming and spilling
if you're serious about your music you invest a lot of time recording tapes
so why not take a couple of extra minutes and clean your heads with a high quality head cleaner"
now what am i going to do with all these pencils