Need a quick facelift?
Or a bandage in a pinch?
Don't despair, reach for the duct tape

By Star-Bulletin staff and wire

MAYBE only two things are needed in this world to get by: WD-40 to make things go; duct tape to make them stop.

Duct tape, so perfect for real male bonding, has thousands of uses: holding aircraft together; keeping models in their swim suits before going onstage; patching leaky kayaks; even in the space program Apollo 13 astronauts used a piece to make an emergency CO2 filter.

Ah, but duct tape has a dark side when it falls into the wrong hands. The Pressure Sensitive Tape Council routinely gets calls from police asking them to identify brands used in crimes ranging from drug-smuggling to murder.

How did duct tape originate?

By Dean Sensui, Star-Bulletin
Look Ma, no hands. Duct tape is strong enough to hold
Cal Pie and Mochi, of 'Too Stupid Guys" fame, to the
News Building wall for a few hours during a Star-Bulletin
Kids Only contest April Fools' Day 1996.

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Adhesive tape was invented in the 1920s by 3M Company researchers. During World War II, the American armed forces needed a strong, waterproof mending material that could be ripped by hand and used to make quick repairs to jeeps, aircraft, and other military equipment. The tape also had to keep moisture out of ammunition boxes.

The Johnson and Johnson Company's Permacel division, which had by then developed its own line of adhesive tapes, helped the war effort by combining cloth mesh (which rips easily) with a rubber-based adhesive, and then gave that combination of rubberized, waterproof coating.

Following the war, housing in the United States boomed, and many new homes featured forced-air heating and air-conditioning units that relied on duct work to distribute warmth and coolness.

Johnson and Johnson's strong military tape was the perfect material for binding and repairing the duct work. By changing the color of the tape's rubberized top coat to sheet metal gray, "duct" tape was born.

There are grades of duct tape -- good, better, best, utility and premium. There's even a nuclear grade for atomic reactors and a heavy-duty kind used on race cars. But duct tape doesn't do well in extremes of hot or cold: it leaves behind a sticky goo with an almost plutonium-like life span.

These days duct tape even comes in a variety of colors: red, green, brown, yellow, white, black, blue, and silver.

By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Duct tape has evolved since the war years.
It is now available in a rainbow of colors.

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The silvery stuff has no end of applications for stop-gap automotive and household repairs. A radiator hose goes, get out the duct tape. It's always good for patching the crack in the dashboard padding.

Heck, if you're working on your car and cut yourself, rip off a strip for a bandage.

And it has other medical applications. One guy's wife uses it for emergency face lifts. A little tape behind the ears hidden by hair and no more wrinkles.

Garrison Keillor, who calls duct tape "the old reliable," is another guy who sees duct tape as one of life's true essentials. His "A Prairie Home Companion" has had shows on a duct tape nursing home, "brought to you by the American Duct Tape Council," in which strips are used across a door with a reminder written on the tape, "Remember Your Cane."

Keillor even introduced a medical-grade duct tape for use in surgery. No sedatives are given to keep costs in line; the patient is merely duct-taped to the operating table. As the patient mumbles through the duct tape, the doctor says, "Quit complaining. You'll faint as soon as we start cutting."

Praise the Lord
and pass the duct tape...

Michael Tiknis, executive director, Honolulu Symphony: "We once had to cover a musician's shoes with black duct tape when he showed up in white shoes."

 Robert Kekaula, KHNL sports director: "Some kid broke into a friend's house and stole a bunch of stuff like his ukulele and guitar. When he found the kid he duct taped him to the clothes line for a couple of hours until he confessed, then returned everything."

Tom Smyth, carpenter from Kaneohe: uses duct tape to line leaky gutters and prevent drips.

Vickie Hernandez, Kaimuki housewife: Uses duct tape to hide her house and car keys. "I keep a spare ignition key strapped somewhere on my car with duct tape and a key to the front door under a deck railing."

Michael Miyamoto, mechanic from Waipahu: uses duct tape for lawn chair webbing repairs. "I replace the webbing in all my lawn chairs with the stuff after the original straps wear out."

Wayne Quensell, Hawaii Kai: once used duct tape to keep a finger splint in place. "I jammed a finger playing basketball so I got two popsicle sticks and duct tape and taped a stick to each side of my finger."

Robert Steers, Southern California: once used duct tape as a tow rope. "I doubled duct tape over onto itself the long way for an instant tow rope when my car got stuck in a ditch."

Glen Bardenas, gardener from Kalihi: uses the tape to keep his dirt bike's engine clean. "I put tape around the tubular frames to keep off the mud and water."

Steve Casar, Honolulu boat repair worker: uses duct tape for quick ding repair for surfboards. "Slap on a small piece over the hole and it will prevent any water from getting inside until you have time to fix it."

Kari Steele, radio personality: "I was on a camping excursion in Sequoia National Park with some friends and I was bounding over a rock, fell, and cut open my knee. No one had a first aid kit but some one had -- I still don't know why -- had a roll of duct tape in his back pack. I was able to keep the wound closed for the three remaining days in the woods and it never needed a stitch and it was waterproof so it didn't get infected."

Tim Ryan, reporter, Aina Haina: I use the white duct tape to hide a bunch of rust holes on my car.