an interview
If you click here, you can read an interview I conducted with a person whose job is to test adhesive tape. (It is funny.)
The Tape Interview
Greg Dmochowski is a 21-year-old Engineering and Physics major at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He is currently in a co-op semester. SmallFlightlessBird (dot) blog (dot) com spoke to him on a chill autumn day in Montreal.
SMB
Tell me who you are, and what you do.
Greg
Greg Dmochowski... I test tape.
SMB
You work for a company that makes tape?
Greg
Yes.
SMB
What kind of tape do you make?
Greg
Adhesive tape. So, hockey tape, paint tape, packaging tape... I could go on for a few hours.
SMB
What's involved in testing tape?
Greg
There're five or six standardized tests. The ones that I perform... You have a ramp with a specified height and angle, and you roll a ball down it onto the sticky side of a piece of tape, and you measure in millimeters how long it rolls, along the piece of tape. So you know, you get a range from four millimeters to like, three hundred if it goes beyond the ruler, if it's really shitty tape.
There's also UV tests, so we stick it on glass or whatever material, steel, and we expose it to hardcore UV radiation to see what the sun would do to it. They don't let me touch that though.
There's the holding power test, where you take a piece of tape, attach it onto cardboard or steel, and you hang a one kilogram weight from it, and you wait to see how long before it falls... Do you want more details?
SMB
Yes.
Greg
There's this one where we use a grocery store balance scale - you know how in a grocery store you have a scale, and the needle goes around, and you have a basket, and you put shit in it and it weighs it? We take out the basket, attach a piece of tape to an aluminum or steel plate - usually steel actually ...so if this is the plate (uses hand to represent plate), there's a piece of tape stuck this way, but the tape is twice as long as the steel thing, so you have it like this (gesture), and the other part hangs off. So we put the steel plate vertical with the piece hanging off, and the sticky side's on this side (gesture), and we pull the plate and measure the force that registers on the balance of the tape being pulled up. Does that make sense? There's a mechanism that drags this thing down, and the tape is attached to the balance scale, and you're measuring the force. Does that make sense? I could draw a diagram.
SMB
No no, that makes sense. How many times a day do you do each of these tests? Which one are you most focused on?
Greg
I do the holding power one - the one kilogram weight one, the balance scale one, the rolling ball one, which is the one where you roll the ball down it... and paint tests where we paint surfaces and we apply tape and we take it off...
SMB
Oh yeah, tell us about the paint tests.
Greg
Well, I paint the surface, I apply the tape at varying time intervals, you know, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, half an hour, forty-five minutes, an hour. You know, eliminate the variables. And then we take the piece of tape off after a certain amount of time and we see whether there's any residue left on the paint, or whether any of the paint came off.
SMB
Does it usually come off?
Greg
Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, you know - that's the excitement of it, really. Wait, I want to answer that question, how many times a day do I perform these tests.
SMB
Yeah, how many times a day do you perform these tests.
Greg
Ok, well give me a second, I'll ballpark a figure for you. We have probably about seventy strips of tape to do three tests on each of them, and then probably another ten strips of tape to do the one test where you hang a weight down it, so it's like eighty strips of tape... Probably two hundred and thirty tests a day, give or take.
SMB
Are your fingers usually sticky at the end of the day?
Greg
No, actually it's an odd phenomenon, because we have to clean everything, right, because we have that steel plate, and if you attach a piece of tape onto it, and then take it off (because the machine rips it off), there's going to be adhesive residue stuck on it which will fuck up the result of the next one. So we clean it with MEK - MEK is methyl ethyl ketone, and this methyl ethyl ketone... it's not a crazy chemical. It really dries up your hands, but it cleans up your hands really well. So my hands aren't really sticky, they're just dry if anything. Because of the MEK.
SMB
What does it smell like?
Greg
It's a very peculiar smell, it's like... I don't know how toxic it is, but it kind of has a toxic smell to it. But not really. I don't know. I can't describe smells. Maybe like pure alcohol. Don't you remember your functional groups from chemistry? Methyl, ethyl, and ketone.
SMB
What colour paint do you use when you're painting?
Greg
Well it depends what we're doing, it depends on the application, right? We have a lot of...
SMB
When you're doing that one where you paint and then you put the tape on, and then you take the tape off.
Greg
That one, usually white. Your primers, and your kitchen and bathroom kind of thing. But there's this other test where what we do is, we apply a piece of tape on a wall, and we paint over it. And we do that one in blue, because you have to distinguish between the layers of paint. And you take the piece of tape off, and you look at how clean the edges are. To see whether it's perfectly straight.
SMB
How has this changed the way you feel about tape?
Greg
It's broadened my horizons really. I have a healthy respect for tape, and the people that make tape, and the people that research tape. And even the people that use tape. Especially the people that use tape.
SMB
The customers.
Greg
The customers. Except for those fuckers that complain, and write letters to our company, and say, (doing annoying customer voice) "I did this, and then the tape didn't work." But when you read the letter you realize that he's a jackass.
SMB
You've read these letters?
Greg
Yeah, I've read these letters - I have to test this tape, and I have to do exactly what he did and see what happens. (laughing) And obviously when you don't let the paint dry, and you apply it on the wet paint, it's obviously going to fucking stick to the tape.
SMB
Are these people generally wackos?
Greg
(thoughtful) I don't know, I don't know... The ones that I've read, yes.
SMB
What are the people that you work with like?
Greg
I work with really chill people, actually. You have an old Japanese man who's seven years past retirement, who speaks fondly of his family’s Samurai days. And a 35-year-old Slovakian guy who's really cool. And my boss is Greek, and he's a great guy too.
SMB
Do these people really care about tape, like in a personal kind of way?
Greg
The old Japanese guy, he really digs chemistry. He really digs scientific method so he gets a kick out of... Because he's the one that produces our new tape, and he's constantly on the research and development side of it. But no, today he told that me that he doesn't like tape itself, but he likes this kind of investigative work, detective work. It's almost like cooking, take a little bit of this out, put a dash of this, a pint of that... Whereas the other two guys, they don't give a fuck about testing tape. They just want to go home to their wives, or the other guy goes home to his roommates. They're not passionate about tape.
SMB
Do you wear a lab coat?
Greg
Sometimes I do, yeah.
SMB
In case you get tape on you?
Greg
(laughs) No, I do when I paint because I don't want to get paint on my clothes.
SMB
Do you have a particular fondness for any type of tape now, since you started this work?
Greg
I have a fondness for the sticky kind.
SMB
Aren't they all sticky?
Greg
No, see that's where I come in, I throw out the non-sticky kind. No, I don't really have a fondness for tape.
SMB
This ball you roll down the ramp. Is that a ball bearing?
Greg
Yes, seven sixteenths of an inch in diameter. Steel.
SMB
Is it exciting to watch the ball go down? Do you get really excited to see how far it's going to go?
Greg
Yes, actually I do. You know what's funny? For a ball that has rolled 30 mm, just over an inch, 0.01 Newtons of force have been exerted by the tape onto the ball to stop the ball from rolling.
SMB
That's a handful of Newtons.
Greg
Yeah... Not really. "A handful" implies that there's at least one.
SMB
A fraction of a handful then.
Greg
Yeah. And I actually wrote that out one day when I was testing tape, because I was kind of bored. And that's the actual number for 30 mm. Because you have the angle of the ramp, and you assume it's from rest.
SMB
You're ignoring friction on the ramp I guess.
Greg
Yeah, I can't deal with that, man. Stokes’ [Frictional Force Law], fuck that. Fuck Stokes’.
SMB
Fuck Stokes’.
Greg
Yeah.
SMB
Is there anything else about this job that's fascinating to talk about?
Greg
We've come up with thirteen minutes of non-fascinating...
SMB
Fourteen, almost.
Greg
Fourteen.
SMB
It's not fascinating for you because you do it. Everyone I've told about this gets really into it, they really want to hear more about it.
Greg
I imagine so. I think... You know, I really get a sense of pride when I'm rolling the ball down the piece of tape. I'm thinking, I am making a difference.
SMB
Do you feel like you're contributing to the overall quality of tape in the world?
Greg
Oh man, it goes beyond that. I'm contributing to scientific method, I'm contributing to research and development, and...
SMB
And to hope?
Greg
And to hope. For a better, stickier future. ...With less residue being left behind.
The Tape Interview
Greg Dmochowski is a 21-year-old Engineering and Physics major at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He is currently in a co-op semester. SmallFlightlessBird (dot) blog (dot) com spoke to him on a chill autumn day in Montreal.
SMB
Tell me who you are, and what you do.
Greg
Greg Dmochowski... I test tape.
SMB
You work for a company that makes tape?
Greg
Yes.
SMB
What kind of tape do you make?
Greg
Adhesive tape. So, hockey tape, paint tape, packaging tape... I could go on for a few hours.
SMB
What's involved in testing tape?
Greg
There're five or six standardized tests. The ones that I perform... You have a ramp with a specified height and angle, and you roll a ball down it onto the sticky side of a piece of tape, and you measure in millimeters how long it rolls, along the piece of tape. So you know, you get a range from four millimeters to like, three hundred if it goes beyond the ruler, if it's really shitty tape.
There's also UV tests, so we stick it on glass or whatever material, steel, and we expose it to hardcore UV radiation to see what the sun would do to it. They don't let me touch that though.
There's the holding power test, where you take a piece of tape, attach it onto cardboard or steel, and you hang a one kilogram weight from it, and you wait to see how long before it falls... Do you want more details?
SMB
Yes.
Greg
There's this one where we use a grocery store balance scale - you know how in a grocery store you have a scale, and the needle goes around, and you have a basket, and you put shit in it and it weighs it? We take out the basket, attach a piece of tape to an aluminum or steel plate - usually steel actually ...so if this is the plate (uses hand to represent plate), there's a piece of tape stuck this way, but the tape is twice as long as the steel thing, so you have it like this (gesture), and the other part hangs off. So we put the steel plate vertical with the piece hanging off, and the sticky side's on this side (gesture), and we pull the plate and measure the force that registers on the balance of the tape being pulled up. Does that make sense? There's a mechanism that drags this thing down, and the tape is attached to the balance scale, and you're measuring the force. Does that make sense? I could draw a diagram.
SMB
No no, that makes sense. How many times a day do you do each of these tests? Which one are you most focused on?
Greg
I do the holding power one - the one kilogram weight one, the balance scale one, the rolling ball one, which is the one where you roll the ball down it... and paint tests where we paint surfaces and we apply tape and we take it off...
SMB
Oh yeah, tell us about the paint tests.
Greg
Well, I paint the surface, I apply the tape at varying time intervals, you know, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, half an hour, forty-five minutes, an hour. You know, eliminate the variables. And then we take the piece of tape off after a certain amount of time and we see whether there's any residue left on the paint, or whether any of the paint came off.
SMB
Does it usually come off?
Greg
Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, you know - that's the excitement of it, really. Wait, I want to answer that question, how many times a day do I perform these tests.
SMB
Yeah, how many times a day do you perform these tests.
Greg
Ok, well give me a second, I'll ballpark a figure for you. We have probably about seventy strips of tape to do three tests on each of them, and then probably another ten strips of tape to do the one test where you hang a weight down it, so it's like eighty strips of tape... Probably two hundred and thirty tests a day, give or take.
SMB
Are your fingers usually sticky at the end of the day?
Greg
No, actually it's an odd phenomenon, because we have to clean everything, right, because we have that steel plate, and if you attach a piece of tape onto it, and then take it off (because the machine rips it off), there's going to be adhesive residue stuck on it which will fuck up the result of the next one. So we clean it with MEK - MEK is methyl ethyl ketone, and this methyl ethyl ketone... it's not a crazy chemical. It really dries up your hands, but it cleans up your hands really well. So my hands aren't really sticky, they're just dry if anything. Because of the MEK.
SMB
What does it smell like?
Greg
It's a very peculiar smell, it's like... I don't know how toxic it is, but it kind of has a toxic smell to it. But not really. I don't know. I can't describe smells. Maybe like pure alcohol. Don't you remember your functional groups from chemistry? Methyl, ethyl, and ketone.
SMB
What colour paint do you use when you're painting?
Greg
Well it depends what we're doing, it depends on the application, right? We have a lot of...
SMB
When you're doing that one where you paint and then you put the tape on, and then you take the tape off.
Greg
That one, usually white. Your primers, and your kitchen and bathroom kind of thing. But there's this other test where what we do is, we apply a piece of tape on a wall, and we paint over it. And we do that one in blue, because you have to distinguish between the layers of paint. And you take the piece of tape off, and you look at how clean the edges are. To see whether it's perfectly straight.
SMB
How has this changed the way you feel about tape?
Greg
It's broadened my horizons really. I have a healthy respect for tape, and the people that make tape, and the people that research tape. And even the people that use tape. Especially the people that use tape.
SMB
The customers.
Greg
The customers. Except for those fuckers that complain, and write letters to our company, and say, (doing annoying customer voice) "I did this, and then the tape didn't work." But when you read the letter you realize that he's a jackass.
SMB
You've read these letters?
Greg
Yeah, I've read these letters - I have to test this tape, and I have to do exactly what he did and see what happens. (laughing) And obviously when you don't let the paint dry, and you apply it on the wet paint, it's obviously going to fucking stick to the tape.
SMB
Are these people generally wackos?
Greg
(thoughtful) I don't know, I don't know... The ones that I've read, yes.
SMB
What are the people that you work with like?
Greg
I work with really chill people, actually. You have an old Japanese man who's seven years past retirement, who speaks fondly of his family’s Samurai days. And a 35-year-old Slovakian guy who's really cool. And my boss is Greek, and he's a great guy too.
SMB
Do these people really care about tape, like in a personal kind of way?
Greg
The old Japanese guy, he really digs chemistry. He really digs scientific method so he gets a kick out of... Because he's the one that produces our new tape, and he's constantly on the research and development side of it. But no, today he told that me that he doesn't like tape itself, but he likes this kind of investigative work, detective work. It's almost like cooking, take a little bit of this out, put a dash of this, a pint of that... Whereas the other two guys, they don't give a fuck about testing tape. They just want to go home to their wives, or the other guy goes home to his roommates. They're not passionate about tape.
SMB
Do you wear a lab coat?
Greg
Sometimes I do, yeah.
SMB
In case you get tape on you?
Greg
(laughs) No, I do when I paint because I don't want to get paint on my clothes.
SMB
Do you have a particular fondness for any type of tape now, since you started this work?
Greg
I have a fondness for the sticky kind.
SMB
Aren't they all sticky?
Greg
No, see that's where I come in, I throw out the non-sticky kind. No, I don't really have a fondness for tape.
SMB
This ball you roll down the ramp. Is that a ball bearing?
Greg
Yes, seven sixteenths of an inch in diameter. Steel.
SMB
Is it exciting to watch the ball go down? Do you get really excited to see how far it's going to go?
Greg
Yes, actually I do. You know what's funny? For a ball that has rolled 30 mm, just over an inch, 0.01 Newtons of force have been exerted by the tape onto the ball to stop the ball from rolling.
SMB
That's a handful of Newtons.
Greg
Yeah... Not really. "A handful" implies that there's at least one.
SMB
A fraction of a handful then.
Greg
Yeah. And I actually wrote that out one day when I was testing tape, because I was kind of bored. And that's the actual number for 30 mm. Because you have the angle of the ramp, and you assume it's from rest.
SMB
You're ignoring friction on the ramp I guess.
Greg
Yeah, I can't deal with that, man. Stokes’ [Frictional Force Law], fuck that. Fuck Stokes’.
SMB
Fuck Stokes’.
Greg
Yeah.
SMB
Is there anything else about this job that's fascinating to talk about?
Greg
We've come up with thirteen minutes of non-fascinating...
SMB
Fourteen, almost.
Greg
Fourteen.
SMB
It's not fascinating for you because you do it. Everyone I've told about this gets really into it, they really want to hear more about it.
Greg
I imagine so. I think... You know, I really get a sense of pride when I'm rolling the ball down the piece of tape. I'm thinking, I am making a difference.
SMB
Do you feel like you're contributing to the overall quality of tape in the world?
Greg
Oh man, it goes beyond that. I'm contributing to scientific method, I'm contributing to research and development, and...
SMB
And to hope?
Greg
And to hope. For a better, stickier future. ...With less residue being left behind.
