Friday, April 10, 2026
The Fabulous Engineering and Design of Duct Tape
kottke.org: Controlling the stickiness of tape is of utmost importance. In fact, a key element of engineering tape is controlling its stickiness — and only by doing that can tape be wound into a useful roll. If the tape sticks too tightly to itself, we could not use it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
The inclusion of a ramp with tape at the bottom in order to determine a tapes stickiness is something that feels like it should be in a physics problem set with me wondering why anyone would ever be in that situation, but this video proved that something like that can be useful. It's interesting to think about how tape actually functions, because when the things it does are broken down it does feel a little bit like magic. Based on what I know about glue, something like tape shouldn't work, yet it does. It's also interesting that duck tape shares a lot of physical qualities with silly putty. I had never stopped to think about why there are fibers inside duct tape but it makes so much sense that that is where the strength is being held, it's also interesting that gaff tape is essentially less sticky duct tape in order to reduce residue left behind.
Post a Comment