Radio Shack used to sell a bottle of head lubricant they claimed was for this
purpose. For that matter, a colleague once showed me a trick that actually
worked on sticky shed tapes as well, at least if you needed to play one track
and the tape wasn't totally shot yet. You'd rub a little ('scuse my French,
ladies) sweat off the side of your nose and hold your finger against the tape
as it ran past the heads, and you'd give the head enough lubricant to play a
couple of minutes of the tape.
I've succeeded on such tapes with 1. Relieving pressure against the heads - all of them, not just playback.
Mike -- mrichter@xxxxxxx http://www.mrichter.com/