Tape is edited with razor blades.  Film is edited with a splicer.

Here is a fair video on the tape editing process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTh8FAoI4PU

In very early days, film would be edited in a block sort the way tape
is edited... the block had pins that locked up the perforations, and you
would scrape and cement the same way you do with film in a hot splicer.
I have never seen this in real life but it was apparently done in the
Edison days.

Cement splicing came in first, with devices that weren't that different
than a modern Meier-Hancock in general appearance, and I think that
was pretty much universal by 1920.  Cement splicing is still used today
for camera originals.

I don't know when tape splicing of workprints came in, but it was in common
use in the forties.  Tape splices aren't clean on screen but they can be
undone without losing any frames so they are great for workprints where
you may want to be changing things around a lot.

Ultrasonic splicers came around in the seventies when estar stock first
appearing... it couldn't be cemented, and tape splices are ugly. 

Scissors are handy for roughing out and cutting huge chunks of frames out
before splicing, but they aren't much good for getting precise overlap.
Small sharp scissors are a must-have for editing, along with a china marker.

Your tape splicer likely has a gadget for making clean splices between
frame line, and another one for making diagonal cuts.  The diagonal cutter
is for editing magfilm, so you get a smooth transition between sounds.

Kodak patented a tape splicer that made wierd U-shaped cuts, and sold it
as the Presstape Splicer.  The splices are very very strong going through
a projector but look just horrible on screen.
--scott
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