On 06/09/2015 03:01 PM, jwsmobile wrote:
The blue, white, or yellow material felt like and worked like latex. It
may have had some treatment to make it have the tactile adhesion you
felt, but it left zero residue on the tape despite the adhesion to the
mylar backing on the tape.
I think the guess of being vinyl is probably bang on. Latex would have
long since degraded.
When you stretched it it lost the property to stick to the tape, by the
way, so shrinkage may be the culprit if they quit working. I find that
the Writghtline seals work the best if the tapes were not and are not
hung with them. Eventually the white material will fail, or the black
lock will break, but they are by far the longest lasting other than just
a clear box container.
There were several competing systems for hanging tapes. There was one
that used hard plastic "bands" that were pretty wide (perhaps 1.25")
that would crack if you dropped them on the floor.
I've run into tapes with 5 leaders spliced on, one right after the other.
And you'd be sure to get grief from your operator if you took one of
those stiff leaders with a notched end and bent it double.
I remember when the self-threading vacuum column drives were introduced.
The usual procedure was the clip off the last inch or two of the
leader before using them. Of course, if you carried the same tape
between auto- and manual-threading drives a lot, that leader could
shrink pretty quickly.
--Chuck
