Duct Tape Portfolio What do you do when you're a starving artist and can't afford a portfolio to truck your drawings around in? Do what Sarah of Sturgeon Bay did, get a couple of sheets of cardboard and duct tape the edges. It's a giant, durable (and we think, quite classy) envelope portfolio!

Duct Tape Gardener While mowing the lawn I broke a branch on My Wifes favorite pepper plant. My trusty roll of Duct tape was at my side. One strip of tape mended the pepper plant and saved My %$#@*.
The branch healed and the plant survived. Proof, Duct Tape can be used in Horticulture.

Duct Tape River Ride Our annual canoe trip down the Saskatchewan River was a success this year due to the simple fact that one of us grabbed the duct tape during the packing process. Generally we are "purists", refusing to take unneccessary items. Actually we are getting older and the toting to and from the river is killing us.
This year the South Saskatchewan was low and the amount of rocks created a few 'class one ' rapids. Our old fiberglass canoe took a beating and finally the keel received a crack that it could not withstand. Frantic baling was required. We coasted to a sandy shore, emptied and flipped the canoe to discover a serious wound. Thankfully with a few sticks of Trident sugarless gum and three long strips of that silvery-grey wonder tape we continued on to our destination.
- Lorne and Edie T., Ken and Cheryl M., of Wynyard, Saskatchewan

Duct Tape Rock I come from a small town outside of Asheville, North Carolina. Here we take the phrase "Duct tape fixes everything" to the extreme - it has even been adopted as our redneck chrome. I went to Enka High School, our whole community revolved around the schools athletic teams, and a big part of high school was going on to the school grounds late at night and spray painting our spirit rock. I was a part of a group called "The Senior Camo Girls" it was just my close group of friends that would tag our spirit rock late at night with our Senior Pride, however, after a semester of camo and pink spray paint we thought we would add some of the community culture to our school...by covering the spirit rock in duct tape. You may think this is nothin' just a little duct tape on a little rock, you're wrong! It took time and planning, our first step was to break into the grounds and measure the rock, which wound up being 6ft high, 5ft wide, and 4.5 ft on the top, the next was the duct tape, we weren't sure how much we would need so we decided for each girl to buy three rolls of duct tape which ended up being 15 rolls, which ended up being around 2,043 ft of duct tape. We used all of it. At 10 p.m. the last day before Spring Break we went and covered our spirit rock in duct tape, by 1 a.m. we had one shiny "Candla' Chrome" spirit rock. Attached are two pictures, one is what the rock looked like the day before we did it, while we were doing it, and after we were done.... I am positive this is the best use of duct tape...EVER. - Caitlin G.

Laundry Chute Door Closure Frustrated with a laundry chute door that was continually opening with the opening and closing of the room's door, John of Shoreview, MN resorted to duct tape to keep the danged thing shut. Good thinking John! Now, just tape over your closthing and you will resist spills and stains and remove the need for the laundry chute altogether.

Gameboy Muffler Do you have any noisy Game Boys or other hand held electronics in your house? My poker game is too noisy for my wife. I solved the problem by duct taping over the speaker! I can still hear but the sound doesn't carry. - Wat Hughs

Duct Tape Siding Fix After the hail storm in the Twin Cities area My son in-law fixed the side of there house with duct tape to prevent any more water damage. - Rick Nelson

Body Cast Fix My eight year old son Chad desided to break both his legs this summer and send some time in a full bodycast. The hospital places a wooden broomstick handel between his knees to keep the cast spread wide. Well even in a full bodycast Chad somehow breaks things like that wooden rod but I took my roll of ducktape and wraped the bar up and around the cast several times. Should hold up well until his change! You wouldn't believe how much bodycasts cost - a two dollar roll of duct tape was well worth it! - Chad's Mom

Gooey Farmers My father was a duct tape specialist from way back. His most useful project was recovering the seat on a D17 Allis-Chalmers tractor. It didn't have a cab, so after time passed with the tractor being in the sun the duct tape goo eventually oozed out of the edges and you'd come off the field with the back of your legs sticky with duct tape adhesive. - Melinda Good point to remember - if you are going to have duct tape in the head, it will ooze after a while. So cover your duct tape repair job with a sheet of plastic before using it.

Nesting Material A friend found a barn swallow nest that had fallen to the ground. She used duct tape to put the nest back into place. The swallows raised babies in a mud nest with duct-tape siding. - Al B. Hartland, MN

Bad Idea
We came upon this product (left) from the Nexcare division of 3M Company - nabbed a pack for posterity, then promptly noticed that we could not find it anywhere - not in stores nor on the Nexcare web site. So, apparently the Nexcare folks came to the same conclusion as did we (and probably the general public)... With a roll of duct tape at hand, who needs duct tape bandages? Just slap a strip of duct tape over the wound to stop the bleeding and to keep out dirt and germs. Duh!

Funky Tire? Duct Tape! Ray was inflating the tire on his utility cart when he heard, "RRIIIPPP!" The results were a bulging inner tube which would have ruptured with the first turn of the wheel. Duct tape to the rescue. After thoroughly wrapping the ripped area of the tire, the cart was ready to put back into service. Nice tapin', Ray!

Sports Bra on a Roll I have always been EXTREMELY athletic, and found puberty to be very upsetting when I started to get boobs. While most women desire to have bigger boobs, I would KILL to be completely flat-chested. Wearing a bra was such a hindrence because, (no matter how comfortable of a bra I could find), my shoulder movement was still restricted to some degree. I did many sports - competitive horseback riding, basketball, competitive running, racketball, and biking to name just a few. Well, after about a month of wearing a bra, I was sick and tired of having my shoulder movement restricted and my athletic performance effected. So - you guessed it - I resorted to the 8th wonder of the world - duct tape! I wrapped my boobs and it was like magic!!! It only took 1-2 weeks to perfect a "wrapping" style that gave me the support I needed and the freedom of my arm/shoulder movement. Not only that, (other than the initial 1-2 weeks), I actually find it comfortble!!! Right now I am 24 years old and have been wearing duct tape since 7th grade. - annonymous but comfortable athlete

Glacial cooling kept at bay... Kathy M. of Mechanicsburg, PA was vacationing in Alaska. Their cottage door didn't seal correctly allowing the cool breezes off of the nearby glacier to cool their cottage beyond a comfortable level. To stay warm at night, she used duct tape to seal the door frame.

Tick Removal In the forest in the midwest, we often run into ticks. And, in the late summer you're prone to get seed ticks--these are newly hatched babies, smaller than a period a the end of a sentence. When you get them, you usually get thousands, which were hanging in a clump a the end of a blade of grass and they start as a black spot that spreads to brown to thousands of individual dots. Water is NO HELP in getting the crawlers off, but if you wrap duct tape around your hand sticky side out, you can just pat them off! (Sand also works, if you're dumb enough to find yourself without duct tape). -Adam

Who Needs Bungie Cords? I needed to haul a couch that was a bit too long for my vehicle, and proved that duct tape can do the job of a bungie cord quite nicely. - J.T.

Guard that Blade! I use duct tape to shield myself from sharp edges when I dispose of old blades (single-edge razor, etc.) around the shop. I just fold a bit of duct tape over the edge and then I don't have to worry about cutting my hand when I'm rooting through the trash for something I shouldn't have thrown out in the first place (like my lunch)! - Steve, Dallas, TX

Trawler Repair I've used duct tape for a number of things on my big ol boat, but sealing up the holes in the rear deck has to be worth a mention. Photo on left - more photos and commentary online at http://timzim.blogspot.com. -Tim Zim, Hampshire, UK

Perfect Fit Air Conditioner Gasket When I installed our window air conditioner, the accordian material that is supposed to fill the sides didn't quite make it to the window frame. Duct Tape to the rescue! I even found white duct tape to perfectly match the window frame. Now I have a perfectly fit air conditioner - no bugs come in and the double layer of duct tape seems to be doing a nice job of keeping the cool air in. Tape on! - Ken S.

Duct Shui Certified J. Michael Knoll proudly displays his framed and mounted Duct Shui certificate.

Won't Work Minneapolis artist Jean Humke has news for ex-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge: Duct tape doesn't stick to plastic sheeting. New owners of a former crack house in the Seward neighborhood, Humke and her husband, David Pitman, figured they should check out just how long it would take to secure their home against chemical or biological attack. So, aided by the Twin Cities Artists Front, a group of about 20 artist-activists, they tailored a 7,000-square-foot plastic tea-cozy to cover the two-story house. The duct-taped seams deteriorated even during construction so they switched to plastic tape heat-sealed with electric irons. They used a rented forklift to hoist the cozy into place on April 1. "It was very beautiful and kind of sail-like with the light reflecting through," Humke said. "The U.S. government should have tested its materials before issuing that warning. And every security kit definitely needs an iron. The home iron: Don't go to war without it."

(above) I’m a Dam Safety Inspector for the Greater Vancouver Regional District and I recently discovered some Duct Tape Strapping on one of our concrete stop logs… the functionality keeps growing!
I’m not sure what the workers were using it for… I suspect it is securing a rubber stopper held between this stop-log and the one below it. - Jonathan Funk

Pop Safe I got tired of people stealing my pop at work, so I made my own duct tape safe on a diet coke box of 12 cans and an old lock I had! - Serge

Burning Man Every year I go to Burning Man in Nevada which is THE duct tape capital of the world. New uses for duct tape are greatly appreciated over there. The best one I saw last year was a group of people walking along with quarts of beer duct taped to their hands. I asked them why they had their beers duct taped to their hands and they said they didn't have to worry about putting their beers down anywhere and forgetting them. It was one less thing to remember. Things get pretty screwy at Burning Man. One year we made a complete dress on my sister in law in duct tape. It looked really cool, but at the end of the night we had to cut it off her with scissors. Oh yeah, everything at Burning Man is held together with duct tape.- Kay

Dog Collar Zapper Protector I have 2 really big dogs and an invisible fence to keep them in the yard. One dog destroyed the other dog's electrical zapper collar. Great to chomp down on when rough housing in the back yard. ($150 expense for replacement collar!) I now put about 6 layers of duct tape to secure the battery and protect the electronics. I get about 2 months of "dog abuse" with this great idea. - Tim M-V

Horticulture Tape I'd like to confirm the horticultural handiness of Duct Tape. Five years ago we were fighting a running battle with the wood pigeons in our garden (Portsmouth, UK). The heavy feathery lumps insisted on sitting in/on our young cherry tree, and at one point they'd almost snapped-off four of the branches. My husband laughed when I stuck them back together with Duct Tape, but the tree is now in fab shape and 8 foot tall. - Rachel G.

Cockroaches Foiled by Duct Tape!
Permacel P-665 Gaffer Tape [actually, any duct tape will do] is a 100% effective cockroach trap. Lay out a strip at night and pick it up in the morning. -submitted by Stan @ Filmtools

Filmtools

Assignment: Duct Tape For our Introduction to Engineering class at Rutgers, we had to make a project using paper towel rolls, toothpicks, paper clips, poster board, string, and and kind of adhesive tape (which almost makes it too easy). We decided to make duct tape rain gear. The boots are made of only duct tape and string. They fit over sneakers too. Very functional and waterproof. We also make an umbrella. We wrapped paper towel rolls in duct tape for the handle, made duct tape fabric for the top of the umbrella, and used duct tape and rolled poster board for the spokes. It even opened and closed! And, clean-up was a snap! We just wrapped one of our team members with Duct Tape, sticky-side out and she rolled around the floor. - Rutger's Student

Dog Boot My dog injured a paw and required a bandage to be kept on it for 6 weeks. Of course it needed to be kept dry too, so after trying a few different things and deciding that dog boots are just to expensive (and not shaped like a dog's bandaged paw) I hit on the idea of using Duct tape. Putting a small kid's sock over the bandage and wrapping the lot in Duct tape made a custom sized-waterproof-removable boot. I am however ashamed to admit that I did let the vet use so called 'medical tape' to keep the bandage on... John B.

Bike Flappers (above) Remember when you gave your bike that cool motorcycle engine sound by attaching playing cards to the bike frame and having them flap in the spokes? We used to use clothes pins. But Noah and Reed of the Twin Cities, Minnesota have improved on the idea by using duct tape to attach the cards.

(Below) Got Dorm Decorating Needs? Get out your roll of duct tape and use RA Zack's giant Ohio State "O" wall hanging as inspiration. Thanks to Jennifer for the photo.

The Harvard Solution to ID Retrieval I am the Facilities Manager for the Harvard Medical School and was out looking at a problem area. To get a good look at the problem,  I had to lie on my stomach and look through a metal grate into a large exhaust duct. My ID is suspended from a lanyard around my neck. Unfortunately, it had dropped through the grate so when I stood up, if was pulled from the lanyard and dropped down to the bottom of the well. I was able to retrieve my ID and avoid the embarrassment of having to report it lost by wrapping duct tape around the end of a ten foot piece of conduit and fishing for it. TGIDT! - John J. Paras

Couldn't have made it home without it......
My father in law and I were returning from a late night gator hunt, went over a bump and felt the boat and trailer wildly fishtailing behind us. We stopped as quickly as possible, having been doing 60, and found that the nut had fallen off the ball. The ball was still in the trailer tongue and the nut was long gone. We didn't have a replacement nut and resorted to ol' trusty to get us home (another 20 miles). It held great. - Michael, St. Simons Island, GA

Hot Spot Prevention My dog Phoebe often gets a hot spot on her front leg near the "knee". Rather than using the expensive medical tape, a quick, loose one layer of duct tape around the spot on her leg heals the spot up. The duct tape stays in place better, and lasts through all sorts of bunny hunting adventures. Plus she struts around like a tough dog showing off her battle wound when other dogs come to play. - Kim

Skateboarder's companion Here Kole shows off his skateboard - edged in classic silver duct tape - both for a nice customization and to prevent chipping at the same time.

Zombie Mop I work in the produce department of my local hannaford and weve had this squegee mop combo thing for about 20 years (three years older than i am!). Just today it broke in half and I wasn't sure what to do, so i talked to my boss and he told me to throw it out. When I came back from my break a coworker said that she had noticed it died and she brought it back to life by tightly wrapping it with duct tape and small metal rods around to the fracture point. And it lives! The zombie squegee mop thingee.- Luke B.

Cherry Bounce - Duct Tape Style When Kelly puts up bottles of Cherry Bounce (cherries, sugar and brandy allowed to co-mingle for two or three months thus yielding a tasty treat), she seals the bottles with duct tape. We think it creates the foil-capped look of a bottle of fine champagne!

Jazz Tape I've been playing jazz for almost twenty years now and duct tape is always along on our gigs! It holds sheet music to our stands on windy outdoor gigs, is great for instrument case repair, and is always available to hold wires in place to the stage floors. Last night I used it to hold a mic in place on my sax. - Stanley T., Memphis, TN

Extra Hand Installing a towel rack under the kitchen sink, I found myself in the need of an extra hand to hold the rack in place while I drilled in the screws.I was getting really frustrated when I thought, "Duh! Duct tape!" Just one little piece held that rack nicely until the screws firmly held it in place. Duct tape: Extra Hand on a Roll! - Sam F., Iowa City, IA

Lazy Neighbor Steven Olson of Grove City, MN made his "lazy neighbor" this comfy "rider mower" as a gag gift. Nice goin' Steve! I think you may be giving LazyBoy Company a great idea!

Seal out Radiation I work at a nuclear power plant in providing physical security, and I've been wanting to send you this picture (above) I took at the Nuclear Power station in Florida. The sign reads "Door sealed on the outside with duct tape - Emergency Use Only". This door seals two boundaries from contaminants and radiation. Courtesy of the Turkey Point Nuclear Security Team.

Duct Tape Saves Seat After serving me well through my premobilization and then my time in Kuwait, my chair decided to rip halfway through my tour in Iraq! One particularly busy day after my shift was done, I went back to my room to sit in my trusty chair and have a cold drink of water to relax. Everything changed when the seam on the chair burst and I couldn't get comfortable. I got quite upset until I saw a roll of duct tape that I always try to keep handy. A couple of times around the top and side of the chair was all I needed to keep the old chair going and keep me relaxing! Thank you duct tape! - SPC Matthew Austin, Binghamton, NY writing from Iraq

Prevent Deer From Electrocution I use duct tape "flags" for my electric fence. The deer see the flags and know something is there and they need to jump it. If there's nothing hanging, the deer tend to go thru the fence because they don't see it. I had to put it up 3 times in 5 days one year because I forgot. The horses hear the pulse and stay away from it but deer need to see it. Works better than anything else I've tried over the years. I just do it spring and fall and have no problems. - Candie W., Spinnerstown, PA