Tape loop capstan hiccup at splice point.

[steenamaroo]

Hi all,
I recently acquired a WEM copicat mkIV.

I made a few loops from some old, but good, quantegy.
Most wobbled but one was OK.
I made a few more but couldn't get a perfect one so I bit the bullet and bought suitable loops for the machine.

Now I have the loops, I'm having the same problem.

I've run the capstan by hand powered down and can see that as the splice point goes across the capstan, it comes off wide...IE, the tape tries to lift away.

The simplest  way I can described it is as if the splicing tape is very thick and unwilling to bend freely around the small capstan.
This is not the case, though. It's suitable tape and a very professional, neat, straight, splice with proper splicing tape.

Increasing tension of the arm by hand helps to smooth things out but I have to tension it so much that the motor slows down substantially and it's almost certainly too much for the tape, long term.

I should say that the heads and path have been completely cleaned with 99%. They're all looking good.
There is a worn path on the heads - not much but it's there, and there's actually a fine line bored in the tape guide where the tape has obviously spent years riding slightly higher than it should and the tape edge has bored its way up.

Rotating the guide to offer up a fresh clean surface did not help.

So, I'm not really sure what my question is.
Does anyone have experience with this machine or scenario?

Many thanks in advance.

Edit: I just removed the heads and guide, running the tape on the capstan and tension roller only and it still kicks when the splice goes past the capstan.

 

[radardoug]

The WEM is a crap mechanical design, the tape wraps too far round the capstan, it will always have this problem. Its a cheap POS. Live with it or buy a better unit.

 

[steenamaroo]

Well I just fixed it so.......

Thanks?

The fact that none of the models I've seen in demo videos exhibit this fault was motivation enough.

For anyone with the same question, I stripped, cleaned and rebuilt the motor.
It was running hot and, apparently, weak. It didn't seem particularly dirty but a good clean did the job.

I'm not entirely sure how or why but the capstan alignment seems to be slightly different upon rebuilding.
Slightly different, I guess, means correct.
Maybe it was badly reassembled in previous hands.