I unexpectedly needed duck tape Wednesday at 8:00 a.m. in the morning. Pulling into a parking spot, thinking about a project with a deadline instead of my parking, I ended up grinding the front of the car on a low curb. I have done that before, but today was special. This time, the scraping shook the plastic bottom of the front bumper loose on both the driver’s and passenger's sides of the car. It wasn’t just loose; it was low enough to scrape the pavement, even though the center was still firm.
I did what any other smart, independent, married woman would do in such an emergency—called my husband. Unusual circumstances kept him from being able to come help me, so he decided the solution was duck tape. Ten years ago, I would have had to beg a ride, but in this day and age, I hit a few keys on my smartphone and voilá! DoorDash delivered duck tape to me. The bottom of the bumper is now firmly stuck to the top, and the makeshift repair survived the drive home on the interstate at 70-ish miles per hour.
Using it made me curious. The most important initial fact I wanted to establish was whether the stuff is called “duck tape” or “duct tape.” According to Wikipedia, citing the Oxford English Dictionary as its source, both terms are appropriate, but the original term was “duck tape.” Why? The earliest versions of duck tape weren’t tape at all, but strips of duck cloth used in the late 1800s and early 1900s for things like protecting shoes, protecting cables from wear, and decorating. At one point, someone sold Venetian blinds whose slats were held together with the stuff.
Duck tape took the form we are familiar with during World War II. A munitions worker, Vesta Stoudt, learned that the troops were having trouble opening boxes of ammunition sealed with paper backed with glue. The factory would leave a thin strip of tape on the outside of the box to help with opening it, but the strip often tore off in transit, leaving troops frantically trying to open the box under fire. She first suggested to her supervisors that they use fabric tape, and they ignored her. Tired of being ignored, she sent a letter to President Roosevelt telling him about her idea and providing him with diagrams for a prototype. He forwarded the letter to the War Production Board, which called on Johnson & Johnson to see what they could do. The War Production Board ultimately wrote a letter back to Mrs. Stoudt, telling her that the Ordnance Department had approved the change, and believed her idea was of “exceptional merit.” A division of Johnson & Johnson had been manufacturing an adhesive tape made of thin duck cloth on one side and adhesive on the other for medical purposes, so, at the request of the War Board, they looked at their product and figured out a way to make it easy to tear with your hands. To this day, Johnson & Johnson credits Vesta Stoudt with inventing duck tape. It was a smash hit with the troops, who quickly learned that it could repair everything from boots to Jeeps. Then, post-war, the tape also was used for sealing things such as HVAC vents, so the name also became “duct tape.”
One other fact about duck tape concerned me—the modern version of the product is not used much in HVAC systems anymore because it breaks down in the heat. As you will recall from one of last month’s posts, I live in the Deep South, and it is now late August. I got into my car the other day where, even though it had been sitting all day in a covered parking garage out of the sun, the temperature registered by the car was 101! So, this little detail about heat breakdown became important to nail down. I need this repair to last at least until Saturday, when my husband and daughter will figure out a more permanent fix. I was relieved to learn that the temperatures at which the adhesive begins to break down are over 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Even in the Deep South, I think I’m pretty safe.
Just for grins and giggles, what is the most unusual or creative use you have ever seen for duck tape?
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