The Multiple uses of..

Duck tape?

Duct Tape?

It's the eternal question. What is it's original name? If it's the former, then why the name 'Duck'?

Actually it was neither.

Duct tape was invented by the Johnson & Johnson company under the name of Drybak. It was white waterproof cloth that was used in hospitals before and during WWII. It didn't attain it's distinctive pearl-grey color and name until the end of WWII, when sealing ducts officially took off as a legitimate source of income.

And hence, the name Duct Tape.

The problem is almost everybody; myself included, calls the product 'Duck Tape'. One company in Ohio actually sells it's brand under the name 'Duck Tape' with a cute duck character emblazoned on it.

Duct tape, by rigorous definition, is a reinforced polyethylene pressure sensitive tape with a rubber adhesive on the back.

It has a standard width of 48 mm, and was used in the WWII to hold together gun casings, jeeps, and even airplanes.

Nobody uses duct tape to seal ducts nowadays. Heck, even the air-conditioning installation people don't use it for duct sealing nowadays. There's another tape that does the job even better!

Here are just a few of the examples where duct tape is actually being used for around me.

It was used to fix the loose handle divider on my bokken.

It was used to hold the light fixture up under my bed so I wouldn't have to struggle in the dark when my roommate turned the lights off.

It was used to wrap up glassware when my friend's family moved from Canada to Korea.

My grandfather used it to make a makeshift rope.

My friend Alex recently used it to piece his broken mechanical pencil together.

I could probably write a whole blog on the uses of duct tape.

But if you look at it, duct tape is usually used for a general purpose. For sticking two things that aren't supposed to be stuck together.



A bit like marriage.



Perhaps it's most significant use in the history of mankind which I did not know before aside from it's usage in WWII was when it was used to fix a spacecraft in 1970, when the square carbon dioxide regulators in the failed command module had to be modified to fit in the round receptacles of the lunar module, which was being used as a lifeboat at that time. The makeshift contraption of duct tape and other materials worked, and allowed the crew to return to Earth.

Even nowadays duct tape is being used in space shuttles, for example in cases of 'acute psychosis' where NASA instructs the crew to restrain the affected crew-member using duct tape.


What have I learned from this?

An object engineered is the engineer of it's purpose.

It is actually degrading for an object to be used solely for the purpose it was built for. It does not promote cross-thinking where you overlap ideas and go 'Hey-- I could use this in that way!', or put more simply, to think outside the box. Such method of thinking and reasoning benefits the human race by allowing ideas to merge and hybridize, creating a unique blend of solutions where there hadn't been one regardless of the fact whether there was a problem regarding it in the first place.

What would I add to this marvelous piece of engineering marvel?

Hmm. tough question. I could add incisions to make detachment more easy, but that would compromise the integrity of the tape. I could add a stronger adhesive, but the adhesion level of duct tape is such that there is a type of specialized duct tape which actually has a lowered level of adhesiveness as to avoid messy residues after the tape had been removed.

If I could disregard all technical limitations, I vote to put a color mimicking coat on the surface of the tape so when the tape is put in place it will won't stand out as much. Imagine! You could put together that vase you totally broke and she won't even notice it!

I pity the the fellow who made a suit out of duct tape though. Not only will the suit be transparent, it'll also hurt like hell when taking it off.