HERESY!  This may eclipse all previous posts for sheer lack of decorum, good
taste and just plain manners.  It's, it's ... UNAMERICAN.  Or something.

Mike

Friday yet?

> From: DaveC <voicebox@DNAI.COM>
> Reply-To: DaveC <voicebox@DNAI.COM>
> Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 08:02:18 -0700
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Duct tape (was: Front blower fix: Free and permanent)
>
>> I carefully positioned the end of the tube right where I wanted the
>> juice to flow then taped it to the motor. (God bless duct tape.)
>
> Duct tape is crap.
>
> Here's an article I saved about the "quality" of duct tape:
>
> -----
>
> POPULAR SCIENCE (December 1998)
>
> Tape That Doesn't Live Up to its Name
>
> DUCT TAPE is one of the most versatile materials ever
> invented.  You can patch a tent, seal up a box, or even
> repair a leaky garden house with it.  But according to the
> Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National
> Laboratory, there's one thing duct tape doesn't do well:
> seal a duct.
>
> In leak tests at the lab, researchers Max Sherman and Iain
> Walker forced alternating hot and cold air flows through
> finger-jointed metal ducts sealed with a variety of products
> --including duct tape, clear plastic tape, foil-backed tape,
> mastic, and injected aerosols.  The reasearchers also baked
> the sample ducts at temperatures of 140 to 187 degrees F,
> simulating the conditions in many attics.
>
> "Of all the things we tested," says Sherman, "only duct
> tape failed.  It failed reliably and quite often catastrophically."
>
> Duct tape consists of a cloth backing and a rubber
> adhesive.  "We think that heat degrades the glue, and that's
> what's killing the duct tape," Walker says.
>
> The researchers are recommending that duct tape
> manufacturers reformulate the glue to work better at higher
> temperatures, and that longevity standards be developed for
> all duct sealants.  Whether that will happen remains to be
> seen; as of press time, manufacturers were studying the test
> results.
>
> In the average house, 20 to 30 per cent of the energy used
> for heating and cooling is lost through ducts.
>
>                                       ...Dawn Stover
> --
> Dave Carpenter
>
> Whatever you wish for me,
> May you have twice as much.
>
> "Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think
> we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering." -- Arthur C.
> Clarke
>