# What do you use your Scotch Tape for?



## Long Nose (Jan 6, 2011)

Since post-it notes have long overtaken Scotch tape for posting notes, what do you use your Scotch tape for?

I've probably only gone through one roll on my heavy duty dispenser in the last three years.

Here's my $0.02

1) Clean my keyboard crevasses of stray hair, dust and dead skin
2) Hang Christmas and Halloween decorations


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## Long Nose (Jan 6, 2011)

I should say if you're going to clean your keyboard with scotch tape, please don't attempt this before lunch or snack time.  It'll spoil your appetite.


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## Long Nose (Jan 6, 2011)

Flake?


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## schielrn (Jan 7, 2011)

Wrapping Presents and laminating things.


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## JamesW (Jan 7, 2011)

You use scoth tape to wrap presents?!  Arn't you supposed to be able to UNWRAP them?


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## schielrn (Jan 7, 2011)

Thats the fun of tearing the paper off of them?  What do you use to keep the paper on the present?


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## Long Nose (Jan 7, 2011)

schielrn said:


> Wrapping Presents and laminating things.



You wrap presents at work?

I visited our office supply area and there is a huge box of Scotch tape that no one seems to need.

-Removing lint and pet hair from jackets and pants
  If you pull a length long enough to wrap around your hand and reverse the sticky side out, you can use your hand as a roller and pick up the offending freeloaders.


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## justme (Jan 7, 2011)

First read through I thought you said wrap it around your head...

I thought now that is weird.....


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## Long Nose (Jan 7, 2011)

he he he.  Time for more Friday morning coffee?


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## schielrn (Jan 7, 2011)

Long Nose said:


> You wrap presents at work?


Well actually my wife wraps presents, I just buy them.  But you didn't say what do you use Scotch tape for at work?   We typically go through at least one heavy dispenser at home per year.

Its also good for holding down table cloths at picnics or out back when we have parties and have to set tables out or run streamers or banners.


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## Long Nose (Jan 7, 2011)

schielrn said:


> Well actually my wife wraps presents, I just buy them.  But you didn't say what do you use Scotch tape for at work?   We typically go through at least one heavy dispenser at home per year.
> 
> Its also good for holding down table cloths at picnics or out back when we have parties and have to set tables out or run streamers or banners.



You are correct, I didn't say where.  My bad.  It just struck me that everyone in the office has Scotch Tape and not many use it at all.


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## MrKowz (Jan 7, 2011)

justme said:


> First read through I thought you said wrap it around your head...
> 
> I thought now that is weird.....


 
I read it that way too.  I pictured walking around with a single strip of scotch tape on your head and random homeless people being stuck to it.


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## schielrn (Jan 7, 2011)

Long Nose said:


> You are correct, I didn't say where. My bad. It just struck me that everyone in the office has Scotch Tape and not many use it at all.


At the office, I just noticed I have a roll on my desk, but to think of it, I may have used it once in my 4 years here.   It surely has collected a lot of dust.


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## RoryA (Jan 7, 2011)

I use it for sticking pictures (usually photoshopped) up in the kitchen at work.


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## Long Nose (Jan 7, 2011)

schielrn said:


> At the office, I just noticed I have a roll on my desk, but to think of it, I may have used it once in my 4 years here.   It surely has collected a lot of dust.



Mine is in my desk drawer on a super heavy holder just taking up space.  If anyone has any ideas, any at all, on what else it is good for, I'd love to hear them.  

Come on, there's got to be some use we haven't thought of yet.


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## Long Nose (Jan 7, 2011)

rorya said:


> I use it for sticking pictures (usually photoshopped) up in the kitchen at work.



Can you post any here?


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## RoryA (Jan 7, 2011)

Nope - they wouldn't mean much to you anyway!


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## DonkeyOte (Jan 7, 2011)

are these the same guys that make the eggs ?


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## Joe4 (Jan 7, 2011)

> At the office, I just noticed I have a roll on my desk, but to think of it, I may have used it once in my 4 years here.  It surely has collected a lot of dust.


Mine too.  I think I have had the same roll at work for about 8 years.

An interesting use I read is that it is supposed to work well to remove small, superficial splinters or slivers in your skin.


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## Joe4 (Jan 7, 2011)

Another amusing use that we used to do as kids is stick some to the pad of your cat's back feet.  Then watch them walk.  With every step, they shake their paw.  Quite amusing (and harmless).


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## Taul (Jan 7, 2011)

Not wishing to take this too far but I couldn't resist

http://blog.shoplet.com/office-supplies/the-fix-all-that-is-scotch-tape-350-uses/


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## Long Nose (Jan 7, 2011)

I found these fairly interesting.

12. Mends the ends of frayed shoelaces so they can be laced through the shoelace holes.

52. Secures documents from slipping on the copy machine when making multiple copies.

57. Repairs broken pens or other small pieces of desk equipment.

61. Prevents snags on office furniture. Place transparent tape across rough spots on a desktop or side of file cabinet.

65. Saves important papers in notebooks. If the hole tears, simply tape over the hole and repunch a new one and place back into the binder.


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## Cindy Ellis (Jan 7, 2011)

Joe4 said:


> An interesting use I read is that it is supposed to work well to remove small, superficial splinters or slivers in your skin.


I actually used scotch tape today, at work, to remove fiberglass fibers from my hand. My real life adventures involve hardware as well as Excel ...and I didn't pay enough attention to the material used for some access panels I was removing from a system.
We also go through cases of scotch tape at work for more normal endeavors...we collect huge amounts of receipt-like printouts from the systems that we develop as part of running test protocols, and have to tape them meticulously into laboratory notebooks, all 4 edges, signed across the edge of the tape onto the lab notebook page.


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## alansidman (Jan 8, 2011)

There is no tape in my scotch, only ice.


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## diddi (Jan 8, 2011)

its handy for removal of cactus spines (especially those nasty little ones you get when handling opuntias)

but, my favourite use: for collecting up mercury spills (assuming that you didn't mean for it to escape and want it back)


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## SuperFerret (Jan 14, 2011)

A little late to add, and linking back to pranks but:

a) Taping over the ball on the old school ball mice and watching the resulting confusion

b) Securing cheap cling film (which is suprisingly un-clingy) to the loo seat for a good bathroom prank (very nearly got me thrown out the house a couple of times)


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## Atroxell (Jan 14, 2011)

Used to work in the photonics industry once upon a time, and one time against my better judgement but under the boss's direct orders, I used the double sided version to secure 3" square quartz plates to a steel fixture for cutting with a .010" diamond wheel. After the first few disasters involving shattered quartz and destroyed diamond cutoff wheels, my boss agreed that bees wax had a superior adhesion quality and decided to wait for the order to arrive from the source. On-time production was important, but doing it right was more so and a lot less expensive.

Mercury spills? Hmmm... Never thought of using tape for mercury spills.

At the same job we also used a lot of mercury to charge the lamps we produced. Usually, when we spilled mercury (we tried not to) we would get as much of it as we could with broom and dustpan, then freeze the tiniest bits with liquid nitrogen to make them like sand grains and then sweep them up with a hand brush. 

I guess I should point out that I often handled kilos of the stuff at a time and on several occasions swallowed some of it--which could explain the logic behind some of my posts. (Really it was triple distilled mercury and you could theoretically swallow up to a kilo of the stuff without harm. Or so the doctor told me the first time I panicked and ran to the emergency room.)

btw: LN is an amazing dusting compound. I would sometimes use it when the boss wasn't around to clear the shop floor of dust. Kind of cool to watch it boil across the floor then disappear, leaving a man-made dust bunny against the wall for clean up. But again, a little more expensive than a mop and a bucket of water.


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## diddi (Jan 15, 2011)

i used the Hg in chem research back in the 80s when it wasn't boo-hooed like it is now.

funny story... i was having depression problems a few years ago and a friend recommended a 'quack' practitioner who could purge the bad spirits away, and incredibly he diagnosed that i had Hg poisoning (without any case history at all).

go the Hg!  still got a couple of litres of the stuff now 

the LN is truely great fun to impress kids about science, hey?


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## snowblizz (Jan 17, 2011)

It's currently keeping together the two halves of a rubber/plastic Y -connector in the hydraulics system of a Citroen BX 16 TRS. Surprisingly this is the *only* part of the system which I know for certain is not actually currently leaking.

My plan for a permanent solution is to upgrade the tape to duct tape. (solution will not of course fix the leak, which doesn't seem to be happening before car is scrapped)


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## Lewiy (Jan 17, 2011)

I use tape exclusively for securing the tape dispenser to the desk so that it doesn’t slip when I reel off the tape…….<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>


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## Greg Truby (Jan 17, 2011)

Interesting - no one indicated using it to affix receipts to 8½×11 (or A4) paper to turn them in for expense reporting. Even when doing this for my own accounting I find it handy to tape receipts to standard sheets of paper before filing them.

For me the other common use for Scotch tape (other than the obvious ones like mending a torn piece of paper or page in a book) is when the battery door for some gadget has come loose or a tab broke off and the door will no longer stay in place without a little help.


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## Smitty (Jan 17, 2011)

Our Scotch tape (when we actually have any) is used to create elaborate parent (and pet) traps in the living room.

SuperFerret mentioned cling wrap - we used to have great big rolls of the stuff for securing pallets.  I once snagged a near empty roll, and one morning before heading out climbing my boss and I taped his girlfriend into bed while she was still asleep.  She was still yelling 8 hours later when we got back.


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## RobMatthews (Jan 17, 2011)

Smitty said:


> ...taped his girlfriend into bed while she was still asleep. She was still yelling 8 hours later when we got back...


Wow. You'd think she'd either be in dire need of *ahem* facilities by then, or would be extremely uncomfortable...


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## Smitty (Jan 17, 2011)

Oh no, she managed to wriggle free after an hour or so, but there was hell to pay when we got back.  After that the only way to shut her up was to get her fed & drunk (glad she wasn't mine).


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## snowblizz (Jan 18, 2011)

Smitty said:


> Oh no, she managed to wriggle free after an hour or so, but there was hell to pay when we got back.  After that the only way to shut her up was to get her fed & drunk (glad she wasn't mine).


I'm surprised you dared to go back. I don't think I would have...


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## SuperFerret (Jan 18, 2011)

Smitty said:


> SuperFerret mentioned cling wrap


 
Cling film and it's various uses in pranks 

I mentioned this conversation to my brother, who informed me (with some glee) that he used to use Scotch Tape to repair his Remote Control Racing Car when they used to go to meets... I think he said he had one car where almost the entire shell was Scotch tape by the end


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## Smitty (Jan 18, 2011)

SuperFerret said:


> I mentioned this conversation to my brother, who informed me (with some glee) that he used to use Scotch Tape to repair his Remote Control Racing Car when they used to go to meets... I think he said he had one car where almost the entire shell was Scotch tape by the end



My old secretary's boyfriend is a motorcycle racer and uses what they call a "rat bike", something someone's wrecked, so the bodywork is FUBAR'd, but it's mechanically sound.  It's literally held together with green painter's tape (which is a nice contrast to the primer gray bodywork).


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## MrKowz (Jan 18, 2011)

Smitty said:


> My old secretary's boyfriend is a motorcycle racer and uses what they call a "rat bike", something someone's wrecked, so the bodywork is FUBAR'd, but it's mechanically sound. It's literally held together with green painter's tape (which is a nice contrast to the primer gray bodywork).


 
I know it isn't scotch tape, but Mythbusters proved that you can hold a car together with Duct Tape.  They also proved a LOT of things with Duct Tape.  That stuff is amazing.


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## Smitty (Jan 18, 2011)

Ahhh, duct tape, next to a dog it's man's best friend, and there should be several rolls throughout the house.

"Remember, if the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."  - Red Green


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## arkusM (Jan 19, 2011)

Duct tape is like The Force, it has a dark side, a light side and holds the world together.


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## SuperFerret (Jan 20, 2011)

arkusM said:


> Duct tape is like The Force, it has a dark side, a light side and holds the world together.


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## danlaporte (Jan 20, 2011)

Smitty said:


> --snip--
> "Remember, if the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."  - Red Green



Everyone bow your heads and follow along:

"I'm a man,
but I can change,
If I have to,
...I guess."



Dan


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## Atroxell (Jan 20, 2011)

```
Everyone bow your heads and follow along:
 
"I'm a man,
but I can change,
If I have to,
...I guess."
 
:rofl: 
Dan
```
 
Ahhh, Dan... It has been 20+ years since I lived in Mountain View, CA....Things have changed far too much for me to ever return, I fear...


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## chuckchuckit (Jan 21, 2011)

‘SCOTCH TAPE –vs- POST IT NOTE nested “If” macro, that has been running continually for me for years.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
<o></o>

```
Sub PostItNoteVsScotchTape ()
<o:p></o:p>
If (you need to use a [FONT=Times New Roman]POST IT NOTE [/FONT]) Then<o:p></o:p>
    If (environment is clean + no wind) Then<o:p></o:p>
        Use POST IT NOTE only<o:p></o:p>
    ElseIf (environment is clean + windy) Then<o:p></o:p>
        Use POST IT NOTE + SCOTCH TAPE<o:p></o:p>
    ElseIf(environment is dirty + windy) Then<o:p></o:p>
        Use POST IT NOTE + SCOTCH TAPE + MORE SCOTCH TAPE<o:p></o:p>
    ElseIf(environment is dirty + windy + BEANIE THE CAT is loose)
        Do While BEANIE THE CAT is still loose<o:p></o:p>
            Chase BEANIE THE CAT<o:p></o:p>
        Loop<o:p></o:p>
        Lock up BEANIE THE CAT in his room again<o:p></o:p>
        Use POST IT NOTE + SCOTCH TAPE + MORE SCOTCH TAPE<o:p></o:p>
    Else<o:p></o:p>
        ‘Do nothing because nothing else matters<o:p></o:p>
    End If<o:p></o:p>
End If
<o:p></o:p>
End Sub
```


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