Tape Collection

[daniel_reetz]

I hate cheap electrical tape period. 3M #33 is all I'll use given a choice.

When I was a kid my Dad would keep a roll of #33 hidden in a high cupboard in his shop, and leave the cheap stuff for the kids to waste. Great tape.

There's a local hardware store called "Mac's" that sells rolls of plumbing tape as electrical tape. Normally, the stuff comes in a roll that's several feet wide, and it's used for wrapping pipes. Somehow these Macs people get it cut into smaller rolls. It looks and feels like electrical tape, but it really isn't. The primary problem with it, as far as I've seen, is that the adhesive on it will melt into wire insulation and cause it to become sticky... forever. I've also noticed that certain kinds of masking tape can do this, but I've never figured out exactly which.

Last night, I raided a signmaker's dumpster. I found some cutoffs from large rolls of 3M application tape called "SCP-3". It reminds me of freezer paper --- paper on one side, slightly plasticky. On on the other side, there's this weird adhesive that has less tack than masking tape, but more than painter's tape. It barely sticks to anything, but if you stick it to itself, the adhesive will actually debond from the paper backing. Interesting stuff.

[rob]

Gaffer's tape is teh awesome.

I have a particular roll of packing tape here. It's very easy to find the edge, very easy to peel it off, and the tape doesn't split. The brand is Bandit. All the other packing tape can suck it >^..^<

[StevePoling]

This thread should either be an advertisement or market research for 3M (or both).

[IcantRead]

This thread should either be an advertisement or market research for 3M (or both).

I started to find out what all 3m makes, THEY MAKE EVERYTHING. I have a cheap beany (snow hat, if I spelled it wrong) made by 3m. If you go to there website they have like touch screens. I would love to work for them but I don't like non discloure forms.

On a side note a lot of tapes don't work well in Arizona the heat melts them, and it's a sticky mess.

[StevePoling]

I heard once that 3M is a 2D company. If something is 2D, they figure it's a legitimate potential product.

[rob]

You should know that 3M comes from MMM, which means Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, so yeah, they make lots of stuff! I'm not sure they do actual mining, but they make mining equipment.

[daniel_reetz]

You should know that 3M comes from MMM, which means Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, so yeah, they make lots of stuff! I'm not sure they do actual mining, but they make mining equipment.

After three years of testing, in 1969 3M introduced its first and only traffic signal, the Model 131. Labeled a "programmable visibility" signal, the signal had the unique ability to be "programmed" so it was visible from certain angles. The Model 131's "programmability" was achieved via masking a clear glass lens with aluminum adhesive tape.

OMG,FOIL TAPE.

PS. I HATE those traffic signals. There are some on a busy intersection here in Fargo, and you can't see them even when you're approaching head-on. When you get say ~50ft from the intersection, you can tell whether the light is green or red, but you don't know the previous state. In winter, when the roads are very slippery, this is a huge problem.

[benjamin]

Anyways I have a big satellite dish in my back yard... So I wanted to a line the inside of the dish with aluminum foil tape and buff the hell out of it. I decided that this would be counter productive though because the tape would cost more than what I would make from the power.

...not if you add a focusing lens and threaten to blow up the moon if your ransom is not paid.

Just sayin'.