The Engineering of Duct Tape [video]

Kapton!

Has a large temperature range.

There are various tapes with medical applications but that’s pretty narrow. Double sided tape is sometimes useful. Very pedestrian but Scotch/transparent tape.

Aluminum foil HVAC tape- super awesome tape for sealing air leaks. It is somewhat rigid and formable at the same time. With the way it is formable, it tends to stay in place better than a lot of other tapes when put into strange shapes.

Velcro tape. Super handy. Along with being in essence a two-sided tape, it also fits into a re-usable, removable niche that becomes very useful. For instance, my Steam Deck's Dock is hooked up to an HDMI cable that is heavy and tends to pull it off of where it lives, but I also want to remove it sometimes. Velcro solves both problems.

Don't underestimate its strength. My father was a brake tester for a car company when PC laptops started to become practical to mount in the cars for instrumentation. Someone tasked a mechanic to mount it in the car, and after trying a few things, they decided to use velcro. So, naturally, they coated the entire underside of the laptop in velcro and had a matching velcro pad in the car. Took a crowbar to get it off. You don't need much.

I thought I knew the basics of tape, but as always I learned a lot from that video. The one that went through my head is mastic tape. I used some on actual ducts and I don't know if it's just an extra thick layer of goo or if there are also more engineering secrets. But dang it is sticky and messy.

Others have mentioned some nice tapes, as a person who makes a living from taping spacecraft together here are some of my favourites:

- Kapton P-224 - Excellent all purpose tape with good adhesion and no residue. High thermal performance and insulation

- Black Kapton 100XC - Great for increasing thermal radiative communication. Pressure Sensitive Adhesive forms a very strong bond that can be easily removed with IPA/Acetone.

- Cho-Foil - thick Aluminium tape, much stronger than the normal off the shelf aluminium tapes, commonly used for electrical grounding. Conductive adhesive, decent thermal range.

- ST150 Vacuum Sealing Tape - Used with plastic liners to create a vacuum around odd shapes. Niche, but very reliable and fun to work with (texture like taffy).

- Teflon tape - plumbers and space nerds love it for sealing things, very easy to use too much of it though.

- Glass fibre tape - excellend performance in vacuum, useful for labelling or protecting something that may be exposed to rubbing or friction.

There are a whole host of thermal tapes out there to give you lots of different optical properties that are very useful for cooling/heating: https://sheldahl.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/RedBook.pdf

Gorilla’s tape. I’ve solved many water leaks with it

cloth hockey tape, great for adding soft grip to tools

Anisotropic conductive tape https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HZ35CyHVxQ

This is tape full of conductive microspheres that, as long as you use it right, conducts ONLY along the direction through the tape. Two contacts right next to each other will not conduct to each other, but two contacts one above the other will.

VHB, the 3m stuff. It's incredible

Also check out prepreg fiberglass and carbon fiber tape.

Nuclear Duct Tape: https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-17542R/3M-Duct-Cloth-...

Circuit Plating Tape: https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-18677/3M-Single-Sided...

400F Masking Tape: https://hightempmasking.com/products/2-x-72-yards-high-temp-...

LCD Backlight Tape: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805965718899.html?gateway...

Retroreflective Safety Tape: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/commercial-specialty-vehicles-us...

Charge collection tape: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b5005047096/

Dual lock tape: https://www.amazon.com/Dual-Reclosable-Fastener-SJ3560-Clear...

I've enjoyed "nano tape", thick clear stuff you can find on aliexpress or amazon. It's like a step up from mounting putty. Good for stuff like sticking a powerstrip to a desk or wall without drilling holes and using screws. I've also used a piece with the top part covered just to add a little bump to my bathroom vanity to stop a fan I'd set there from falling on the floor. It's pretty strong stuff, so beware using it on paint/drywall as it can rip that off later if removed. Works great on smooth/hard surfaces. There is probably some function overlap with 3M VHB tape, but I found this stuff first and still have a big roll. Plus it looks cool.

Drafting tape, which is has 95% of the strength of masking tape (#s pulled out of my ass) – but is even less tacky and leaves even less residue.

His book The Things We Make was good, especially if you're interested in engineering.

Its central thesis is that the engineering method fundamentally differs from the scientific method in that engineers use rules of thumb to solve problems with many unknowns and incomplete information. The scientific method by contrast is a mostly theoretical exercise in building universal principles and theories from empirical observations and experiments.

Engineering, in his view, is not applied science but rather a separate artform.

The book wasn't perfect by any means but that framing and distinction was helpful to incorporate into my worldview.

And now he's here! He's following you. :)

I typically respond to texts and messages!

In one of his last videos he said he was having a child, so that’ll add a few years to your appearance too :P. That kid is probably in grade school by now…

The videos do the same for me!

I'm not a fan either! I prefer gaffers tape.