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Official Sticky Tape
Sep. 10th, 2008 12:10 pmI've been trying to track down the particulars of the Scotch tape test, which is a test for the adhesion of inks, films and coatings. Basically, you stick a bit of Scotch tape to the sample and then pull it rapidly off, as perpendicularly to the sample as possible. It's only a qualitative test, to be sure, but if you can pull the tape off and nothing comes off, you can say you've got a good coating, which it's quite hard to objectively say otherwise, so there you go.
All the most official-looking standard-like things I've seen about it say that the correct tape to use is half-inch 3M 600 tape. Now, if you rummage on websites it looks like 600 tape is available in the US but not anywhere else; everywhere in the UK seems to sell 550 tape as its usual office tape. I rang 3M to see if I could find out what's going on. After being redirected from Bracknell to Manchester and then to Bedford, I found someone who knows; she'd clearly heard all about the Scotch tape test before, and took car to point out that 3M doesn't condone the test, though if people want to use its ordinary office sticky tape for it they're perfectly welcome to. It turns out that 600 tape has been discontinued, anyway, and that there was nothing special about it (some protocols describe it as 'pressure-sensitive', but since that means that the tape sticks better if you press down on it, they kind of all are) and so any of the 500-class tapes like 508 or 550 will do just as well. I realise that this is a very small thing to have properly defined, but it could be argued that the largest part of a PhD is making sure you've got the details nailed down, and this is a small but distinct satisfaction as a result. Mmm, official sticky tape.
All the most official-looking standard-like things I've seen about it say that the correct tape to use is half-inch 3M 600 tape. Now, if you rummage on websites it looks like 600 tape is available in the US but not anywhere else; everywhere in the UK seems to sell 550 tape as its usual office tape. I rang 3M to see if I could find out what's going on. After being redirected from Bracknell to Manchester and then to Bedford, I found someone who knows; she'd clearly heard all about the Scotch tape test before, and took car to point out that 3M doesn't condone the test, though if people want to use its ordinary office sticky tape for it they're perfectly welcome to. It turns out that 600 tape has been discontinued, anyway, and that there was nothing special about it (some protocols describe it as 'pressure-sensitive', but since that means that the tape sticks better if you press down on it, they kind of all are) and so any of the 500-class tapes like 508 or 550 will do just as well. I realise that this is a very small thing to have properly defined, but it could be argued that the largest part of a PhD is making sure you've got the details nailed down, and this is a small but distinct satisfaction as a result. Mmm, official sticky tape.