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The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Adhesive Tape (hackaday.com)
szczys writes: You take tape for granted, but it's truly an engineering wonder. For instance, Scotch Magic tape exhibits triboluminescence; it will generate a bit of bluish light when coming off the roll in a darkened room. It emits X-Rays if unrolled in a vacuum. But this common tape is just the tip of the iceberg. Nava Whiteford looks at lab uses of many different types of tape. Kapton tape is thermally stable and non-conductive. Carbon tape is conductive but resistive. That moves into the non-resistive and more niche tape types. There's a tape for every function. This instant and non-messy way to connect two things together has a lot of science behind it, as well as ahead of it in experimentation, manufacturing, and of course household use.
Duct tape is like the Force - there is a dark side and a light side, and it holds the universe together.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Well, the problem with duck(*) tape is you can't ever remove the adhesive.
It leaves a sticky gooey mess which pretty much can't be removed. It's got its uses, but not anywhere it ever has to come off.
(*) The original tape was duck tape, and used for waterproofing ammo boxes ... it's not meant to be used for ducts, and it's a terrible application for it, or so I've been told by people who install furnaces. Not sure why it morphed into duct tape.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
My favorite Red Green line: "Now you hold it in place by putting a nail through here and bending it -- or you can use a cotter pin if you're made of money."
The original tape was duck tape, and used for waterproofing ammo boxes ... it's not meant to be used for ducts, and it's a terrible application for it, or so I've been told by people who install furnaces. Not sure why it morphed into duct tape.
It dries up and falls apart over time. It's not heat resistant and is flammable.
There is a metal foil tape that is used to seal ducts.
Luckily, with tato, mutfruit, corn and clean water you can mix your own.
One special quality of Duck Tape I learned about recently is its ability to be vulcanized. Several surfers I know expose the glued side to an open flame (such as the one from a cigarette lighter) before applying it, and it would hold on to whatever you stick it, even under water. You could even enhance its stickyness by applying more heat once you taped it.
My favorite Red Green line: "Now you hold it in place by putting a nail through here and bending it -- or you can use a cotter pin if you're made of money."
Remember: we're all in this together.
Keep your stick on the ice. // Quandus omni flunkus moritatis
Mythbusters has also attempted a lot of absurd things, overwhelmingly successfully, with duct tape.
There's one that I haven't seen anyone try, but would probably actually work surprisingly well: duct tape hybrid rocket propellant. Look at what you already have in the form of rolls of duct tape: adhesive-bound cylinders of aluminized binder plus polyethylene webbing, with a channel down the center. If you can join them effectively lengthwise and put them in a tube with a nozzle, that sounds like a description of a darned effective hybrid rocket to me. Aluminized polyethylene is one of the best hybrid propellants out there.
If you were to unroll them, coat the sticky side partially in ammonium perchlorate, then re-roll them, you should have a pretty darned effective solid rocket propellant.
Shiny New Australia.
So, I have blue tape on my walls in the locations that i expect to put up some pictures. I've already moved them twice, so i saved some holes in the wall.
Before i put in an ikea wardrobe, we didn't know if it would fit the room. I had a blue tape outline on the wall, didn't help as much as i wanted. I made a blue tape wireframe, and we felt it matched the room. We then did the same for another wardrobe in the den - a blue tape wireframe.
It was called "duck tape" because when wet, it shed water like a duck.
Well, that beats my theory that it was originally used when you needed to get all your ducks in a row.
Instead of vinyl tape with silicone adhesive, try this:
http://www.uline.com/BL_6420/G...
It is PET, the same plastic as a 2L soda bottle, and the adhesive is silicone based. I have found it impossible to tear, easy to cut, and it has much better adhesive strength than kapton tape.
No, it's called Duck Tape because the original manufacturer used a particular grade of sailcloth (canvas) referred to as Duck Cloth.
You could look it up.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Mop errant duck!
I've always wondered what the tape that holds computer accessories together during shipping is called.
For instance, when I get a new printer, the various hinged parts are held down by a tape that adheres strongly to the plastic parts but releases with no residue despite sitting in the box for months/years. I love the stuff but have no idea how to get a roll of it.
Anybody have a pointer?
passetspike!