Duck(t) Tape: the World's Most Useful Tool.

[Music] foreign it has been called one of the most important inventions of the 20th century and the world's most useful tool more than a hundred million dollars worth of duct tape were sold every year more than enough to reach from the earth to the moon or to go around the Earth 12 times but where did this miracle tool come from well that is history that deserves to be remembered so is it duct taped or is it duct tape well it's properly both and both names play a role in the history of the multi-purpose adhesive but more properly it is neither it is Duke a Dutch word that means simply cloth the website of big duck canvas explains cotton duck also simply duck sometimes duck cloth or duck canvas commonly called canvas outside of the textile industry is a heavy plain woven cotton fabric there's also linen duck Which is less often used duck fabric is woven with two Yarns together in the wrap and a single yarn in the weft the cloth originally found its use in chip sales and durable work clothing the website All Seasons uniforms explains the heavy weight of Workwear Fabrics cotton duck has been used for centuries and some of the toughest environments on the planet the popular fabric was more lightly woven than traditional canvas making it tougher and more waterproof ideal for ships sails as well as Sailors white trousers and outerwear in the 18th century it's water resistant properties even saw a duck used for tents and boat covers the website of Heart and Hand Mercantile explains that as the heavy duty cloth found its way around the world and into things like bags and clothes the word duck turned into duck the popularity of cotton duck was tied to the growth of the U.S textile industry the consumer education site heddles explains that in the mid-1800s Mills like Mount Vernon Mill in Maryland upped their duck campus production and people began utilizing the fabric for other Goods like bags and clothing duck became especially popular amongst Miners and other manual laborers who needed their work clothes to be comfortable but able to withstand heavy wear and tear cotton duck was used in the popular invention in 1873 petals continues Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis actually made their first pairs of riveted jeans from Duck canvas they didn't switch over to Denim until a few years later the cloth became so popular that all seasons uniforms explains such was the popularity of cotton duck in the United States that the National Bureau of Standards felt compelled to introduce a numbered classification system in the 1920s it was intended to manage discrepancies in the specifications and quality of the materials that were being produced the numbered duct system created fabric according to weight with values from 1 to 12. well cotton ducks are many uses the first thought was not of course tape but cloth tape did predate duct tape the website of Tom Brown's specialty tape products explains that in 1845 a surgeon named Dr Horace Day made the first crude surgical tape by combining India rubber Pine gum letharge turpentine and extractive cayenne pepper and applying that mixture to strips of fabric it was the first rubber based adhesive and Dr Day used it in his practice as a surgical plaster this may have been the first use of what is called pressure sensitive adhesive science direct explains that pressure sensitive adhesives are viscoelastic materials combining a liquid-like dissipative character necessary to form molecular contact under a light pressure and sunlight character to resist macroscopic stress during the bonding phase or put more simply pressure sensitive tape is so called because light pressure causes it to sick readily to most surfaces Dr day's tape was apparently not mass marketed that wouldn't come until 1896 when a New Jersey company called Johnson and Johnson which manufactured surgical supplies and household products started offering a product called zonas the Johnson Johnson website explains it zones adhesive plaster was a rubber-based medical adhesive tape made with zinc oxide which soothed irritation potentially caused by the adhesive the name zonas was derived from zinc oxide which created a self-adhesive medical tape however zonas manufactured between 1887 and 1930 found much like today's duct tape more General use Johnson and Johnson continue the product doubled as a household tape the product was used to repair a variety of household objects everything from book bondings to corsets shoes and windows so we have strong durable duck cloth and pressure sensitive adhesive cloth tape but the story of duct tape then relates to another type of tape and the auto body industry the website of can do National tape company rights set in 1923 Richard Drew joined the 3M company located in Saint Paul Minnesota at the time 3M originally the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company only made sandpaper Drew was product testing 3m's wet dry sandpaper brand sandpaper at a local auto body shop when he noticed that auto painters were having a hard time making clean dividing lines on two color paint jobs Richard Drew was inspired to fit the world's first masking tape in 1925 as a solution to the auto painters dilemma Drew would also create clear cellulose tape in 1930. incidentally you might commonly call cellulose tape Scotch tape actually the brand name applies to the entire line of 3M tapes can do explains the brand Scotch came about while Richard Drew was testing his first masking tape to determine how much adhesive he needed to add the body shop painter became frustrated with the sample masking tape and exclaimed take this tape back to those Scotch bosses of yours and tell them to put more adhesive on it the name was soon applied to the entire line of 3M tapes but it was the limitations of paper and cellulose based tapes that would lead to the invention of duct tape the website of Johnson and Johnson explains the iconic tape was invented by an Illinois mom named Vesta Stout who wanted to save soldiers lives in World War II the year was 1943 and stout who had two sons serving in the United States Navy was working at the Green River Ordnance plant near Amboy Illinois she noticed that the boxes of ammunition she was packing inspecting had a flaw explains Margaret gurowitz Johnson and Johnson's Chief historian they were sealed with paper tape with a tab to open them workers then dipped the entire box in wax to make it waterproof but the paper tape was very thin and the tabs often tore off leaving soldiers frantically trying to open the box while Under Fire Stout had an aha moment why not create a waterproof cloth tape to seal the boxes instead she suggested to her supervisors but didn't find the support she was looking for so Stout did what anyone would do on February 10 1943 she wrote a letter to President Franklin D Roosevelt outlining the problem in her solution complete with diagrams the Montreal Gazette exploit in 2021 that in her letter to FDR she offered a solution instead of the tape being made of paper Stout suggested it'd be made of strong fabric sounded simple enough and the president forwarded the letter to the war production board which then put out a request for a cloth-based waterproof tape the contract went to a company called the industrial tape corporation which was a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson girlwitz explains because of its demonstrated expertise in producing adhesive tapes and if you want a strong durable material in order to make reinforced tape what better material to use than duck cloth The Gazette continues to seal the ammunition boxes scientists came up with a layer of lightly woven fabric sandwiched between a rubber based adhesive and a coating of polyethylene the fabric used was cotton duck polyethylene The Examiner explains a plastic introduced by Imperial chemical Industries in the 1930s was the key to making the tape waterproof so was the tape originally called duct tape The Gazette explains that some historians have floated the idea that soldiers either because they were aware of the cotton duck connection or because they thought the tape shed water like a duck began to use the term duct tape that is the name I'd have referred to the cotton duck or to the fact that the polyethylene made the tapes waterproof like a duck or both or in fact neither in a 2010 edition of the Boston Globe reporter Jan Freeman writes that she was unable to find any reference to the term duct tape being applied to the tape that the military used although the term was used in some other contexts that were not adhesive tapes if servicemen really transferred the name to the new wartime adhesive tape she explains they've left no tricks duct tape in that sense isn't recorded till the 1970s in any case and whatever they were calling it the military quickly found uses Beyond ammunition boxes the website educational now explains that U.S soldiers love their waterproof and versatile duct tape and they began using it for much more than simply sealing their ammunition boxes it didn't take too long before they started using it to repair their boots their Furniture their guns and even their vehicles duct tape had even been used to quickly and temporarily close up wounds during an emergency situation it was designed to be ripped by hand not cut with scissors which contributed to its popularity Johnson and Johnson explained that during World War II the U.S military used hundreds of thousands of miles of duct tape on tanks planes and ammunition in fact the military has another name for the tape let's grow its notes the military called the waterproof cloth-backed green tape 100 mile per hour tape because they could use it to fix anything from fenders on Jeeps to boots the military would continue to use 100 mile per hour tape a commenter on the website Expedition Portal wrote that according to my Korean War veteran grandfather duct tape won the war in the case of Vietnam 100 mile per hour tape was particularly apropos the website the fact site explains that with the military push for air mobility in Vietnam a new use for duct tape was found fixing and balancing broken helicopter rotor blades often during the Vietnam war helicopters would play a part in intense battles the rotor blades would often get shot up and cause problems with the aerodynamic integrity and control of the helicopter whenever Crews landed and refueled they would use duct tape to cover the impact holes in the rotors until they could get new rotor blades John Caillou a Vietnam War veteran helicopter mechanic told a 2015 edition of The Chicago Tribune we fixed a lot of holes with duct tape believe it or not they had Huey green duct tape we called it 100 mile an hour duct tape fact site goes on to say that in the Gulf Wars due to Desert sandstorms the edges of the helicopter's rotor blades are often eroded and worn down by the sand after all Santa's course rough irritating and it gets everywhere so technicians would cover the edges of the rotors with duct tape to protect them from Desert wear and tear veteran Eric Daniel writes on his blog on the website to military.com I've repaired rucksacks with it Hummer doors radio antennas patched holes in my Poncho and Gore-Tex jacket with it use it to keep my shoes on my feet and CS gas out of my pants you should never find yourself abroad without a roll of 100 mile per hour tape in your pocket never but as virtually every household knows the tape has found popularity beyond the military educational now explains that after the war soldiers came home with their beloved duct tape it was then that the fix all tape got its popular name changing from Duck to duct the Montreal Gazette writes that the term duct tape had come into common use after the war when manufacturers of heating and air conditioning ducts discovered that the tape was useful for connecting components the color was changed from the original military olive green to Silver by using aluminum powder so as to blend in with the 10 ducks or again maybe not as Freeman writes in the Boston Herald the official story has some holes on the duct tape side as well Martin H gerstal product manager for Johnson and Johnson's permacell company outlined the latest developments in adhesive tapes in the 1958 article that offered photos of workers taping heating and air ducts typical applications of the product a special silver color tape is available for this use kirstel noted but he did not call it duct tape and apparently neither did anyone else even in the immediate post-war era when the product was so popular the earliest citation I found comes from a Montana newspaper ad dated December 1960 advertising duct tape at 5.98 a roll the New York Times doesn't mention the tape till 1973 and it thinks readers may need a definition duct tape fiber tape used to seal the joints in heating ducts in fact we don't actually know how the tape got its famous names Freeman writes so what happened in those crucial decades the 40s and 50s did people start referring to the new cloth adhesives as duct tape at some point did the silver tape gerstal mention become duct tape during the post-war building boom we simply don't know although there is an irony to the name duct tape the Montreal examiner writes in 1998 came a stunning bit of research Max Sherman and Leon Walker of the Lawrence Berkeley lab in California found that duct tape failed reliably and catastrophically in preventing energy loss when used in the heating and cooling ducts of houses as one might expect the revolution that duct tape should not be used on dots caused quite a media Frenzy educational Now notes that different types of heat resistant tape have been designed specifically to seal heating and air conditioning ducts these tapes are commonly called duct tapes but they are not the same as the duct tape that was first designed for soldiers during World War II that is duct tape for actually fixing ducts is not the tape that we commonly call duct tape but you of course don't need ducks to need duct tape the website of Tegan tapes explains by the 1960s duct tape had become a common household item this application is extended Beyond repairs and ductwork people started using it for various tasks like sealing packages bundling items and even making wallets and clothing the tape's widespread usage and affordability led to its reputation as a practical and reliable tool in everyday life CNN explain to Surge in duct tape sales in 2003 on Tuesday less than 24 hours after U.S fire administrator Dave paulison described a list of useful items stores in the greater Washington DC area reported a surge in sales of plastic sheeting duct tape and other emergency items these items Paulson said could be helpful after a biological chemical or radiological attack the actual efficacy of the solution is somewhat questionable but when Homeland Security raises threat levels those are now commonly called duct tape alerts but duct tape can in fact save your life the newspaper of George Mason University advertises a course by the Fairfax County Virginia Community Emergency Response Team learn how to save lives in a disaster using duct tape and a torn up t-shirt Fairfax County search will show you how with Hands-On demos where you'll make duct tape pressure dressings and more a 2013 edition of the Los Angeles Times tells the story of a lost hiker whose life was saved when he used duct tape to write help in large letters on a rocky outcropping and tape goes beyond more than the everyday the website's Universe today calls duct tape which NASA calls gray tape the best engineering tool in space from the Apollo missions in the 1970s to the International Space Station today duct tape has been used as quick fixes and semi-permanent solutions to a variety of tasks gray tape was a critical part of a fix in 1969 that allowed Apollo 13 astronauts to adapt filters when they had to use the lunar module as a life raft gray tape was used in 1972 to help reoffix a broken fender on the moon buggy used to Traverse the Moon gray tape was used in 1973 to help fix cleats and boots used on the Skylab space station to hold astronauts to the floor gray tape and a smoother similar tape called Captain tape is still widely used in the space program in an interview with the Atlantic magazine astronaut Sandra Magnus explained think about how often you throw things in a trash can how can you do that because gravity lets you without gravity you have to figure out what to do I put the trash on a piece of duct tape but dealing with the trash takes forever Universe today noted a 2017 NASA picture of the day that prompted some bloggers to write wow even the space station is held together with duct tape today duct tape comes in all sorts of colors including a patent for a type of duct tape that looks like bacon it's entered the fashion world where specialty businesses are making dresses or handbags or wallets out of duct tape in 2002 a movie was released called duct tape forever based on the popular Red Green show there are several books about duct tape and its uses and the Discovery Channel program MythBusters well they've done well all sorts of things with duct tape you call it duct tape or duct tape or gray tape or 100 mile per hour tape in fact there's all sorts of specialized versions there's even a type today that is called Gaffers tape that's for use of film studios that doesn't leave the sticky residue behind when you peel it off you probably have at least one roll of this in your house because this very useful tool that has such an interesting history is an integral part of holding together our present I hope you enjoyed watching this episode of the history guy and if you did please feel free to like And subscribe and share the history guide with your friends and if you also believe that history deserves to be remembered then you can support the history guy as a member on YouTube a 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 323,389

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy

Id: 9FaDI1i8ijs

Length: 18min 10sec (1090 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 20 2023