View Single Post
 
Old 11-23-2019, 04:28 AM
Algebraist Algebraist is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Posts: 833
Total Downloaded: 143.14 MB
My experience on cutting very sticky tape (like duck tape) using scissors

Dear all

I thought that it might be useful to share what I found about cutting very sticky tape with scissors since if you make a large globe the way I did you have to do a lot of this.

First of all almost everything I tried either did not work at all or after one or two cuts left the scissors blades encrusted with sticky stuff and they would no longer cut and I could hardly open the scissors.

This meant a lot of trying to clean the blades (resulting in many slicing of finger tips!).

Eventually I hit on a method that worked pretty well, so here it is. The critical thing was to ensure that when cutting the tape, you have the "back/bottom" scissor blade making full contact along the full width of the sticky side of the tape whilst the scissors are fully open. Only then start to cut in one clean swift action ensuring that at all times of this action the "back/bottom" blade remains in full contact with the sticky side of the tape across the entire width of the tape. I could not manage a photo of this in action so attempted a drawing

Large Mars Globe (75 cm diameter)-sdc13489.jpg

Using this method I could easily manage 50 cuts without getting much sticky stuff on the blades of the scissors.

However you will still get some on the blades no matter what you do (I think). So I found something like this was excellent to keep them free from sticky stuff

Large Mars Globe (75 cm diameter)-sdc13488.jpg

(Amazon sell this as well as other similar products)

And my final tip is don't push your luck. As soon as the scissors feel any part of the cut is getting sticky, give the blades a quick wipe with kitchen roll with some sticky stuff remover on it (you only need a very small amount).

Oh yes, careful not to slice your finger tips!

Regards

Kevin
__________________
Normally the most advanced tech I use is a pencil.
Reply With Quote