open mike -

You can tell your librarian that I learned long ago that the best way to rewind audio tapes is with an electric eraser. Every librarian should have one - for cleaning up the smudges that come home with the books anyway.

The rubber tip that sticks out is just about the right size to press up against the tape drum, they're about as fast as you really want to go, and they're low-powered enough so that there's little risk of breaking the tape.

Just be sure you get it in the right side to "wind" instead of pushing the tape into a ball in the middle. They're not revesible.

My current tuning problem is an F-style mando that suffers from "crumbly-knob syndrome." The tuner knobs have literally crumbled, and naturally they're not any standard size, so I haven't found replacements. New tuners for an F-style are almost more $$$ than this particular Vega is worth.

Any suggestions? I've tried all the popular luthery shops.

John