Bond gave AZlawyer and I a little experiment over the weekend. :book: He must have thought we were bored or at least did not have anything better to do. Like a dutiful rube, I volunteered. :wave:
Here is his request:
I skipped blowtorch because my plumber's sweat torch was out of liquid propane. I also skipped pocket knife because, believe it or not, I do not own one. But I did do numbers 1 - 4.
Even though it is the most popular brand of tape in the world, I do not own Henkel tape. My roll was made by Intertape. In fact, it was manufactured in Florida (unless they secretly manufacture it in China and purposefully mislabel their rolls :deal
. Here is a picture of my tape:
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The tape is not industrial grade, nor is it fire resistant. But it seems pretty heavy duty. I've used it to tape the seat on my exercise bike and it has held up well.
Here is an image taken after cutting the tape with scissors. The cut was clean and smooth - no rough edges. FWIW, I use scissors when cutting duct tape for applications such as patching a bike seat.
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Here is an image taken after cutting the tape with a knife, with the tape laying on a flat surface (a counter top). I used a steak knife, because it is similar to what was found in KC's Pontiac. Even though I did not have Henkel tape, I did use a Henckel steak knife. :thumb:
Note that at the start of the cut the tape pulls a little before cutting takes place. I tried this a couple of times, and got the same result every time.
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Next I tried stretching out a piece of tape and cutting it with the knife. It was harder to coordinate than I expected, because one really needs three hands to get the job done. I ended up grasping the roll between my knees, holding the free end of the tape with my left hand, and making a quick slice with my right. It wasn't until I finished the maneuver that I realized how close I came to reenacting the Bobbit saga all by myself. :yow:
I tried this a couple times (I am a slow learner :bang
and found I always had trouble with the "finish". In one case I had to finish the cut with a second swipe of the knife. In the other, the cut kind of trailed off on a curve. The knife cuts were clean, but not straight.
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Finally, I tore with my hands. It was neither hard nor easy. In the following image both ends were hand torn. My hand is shown to make it easy for me to identify the picture as the hand-torn one. Nice idea, huh? :idea: I sure need to do something with my nails.
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The straight but ragged edges look to me to be much more in line with the duct tape evidence we have seen,
leading me to conclude that KC tore the tape with her hands and did not cut it with a knife or scissors.