'The Tackifier' Blog by FindTape

It’s always been easy to order multiple colors of a tape when ordering full cases, but very time consuming when ordering individual rolls. Now we’ve made it much faster. If you want to order single rolls of a tape in multiple colors or sizes, here’s what you do:

Let’s say you’re a hooper and you want to purchase single rolls of the 3/4" JVCC V-36P vinyl tape in all 17 colors it is offered in. Just add one of the items, in any desired color, to your cart. You’ll then see a pop-up window where you should click on "Continue Shopping". At that point all you need to do is change the color selection (the quantity will have already been saved) and click "Add to Cart" again. Do this until all of your desired colors have been placed in your cart.

The “Continue Shopping “ button avoids numerous clicks where you’d have to first get back to the JVCC V-36P product page before placing the new color in your shopping cart. I hope this simplifies the ordering process for those of you who are ordering single rolls of different colors or sizes of the same product.

Since P-99 is now discontinued and no longer being made by Permacel (we currently only have some 1/2" wide stock remaining) we keep on getting asked for a suitable replacement tape. Primarily since Permacel P-99 was written into the ASTM D3359-09 measuring adhesion by tape test standard. 3M 720 is a tape of similar construction (polyester film/paper fiber carrier with a rubber adhesive); however 720 is not specifically written into the test standard and it is also now discontinued. We contacted ASTM about the situation and they said they have not recommended a substitute tape yet, but they said they would be discussing replacement tapes at their next meeting in January. If any recommendations come out of that meeting we will follow-up here.

UPDATE (2/14/2010): The last update we received from the ASTM D01.23 subcommittee was that D3359 has not been revised yet and that the committee needs to complete a round robin. Comparative tests are being planned on 3 tapes: Intertape LA-26, Scapa 8010B and CHT-1. A round robin will result from the tests and then D3359 will be updated afterwards.

So after being on my TO-DO list for 5 years I'm finally getting around to starting a blog for FindTape.com. A little history on the company - for over 6 years I worked for Fry (a web development company) as the Technical Director for their New York office. While there I architected ecommerce sites such as Godiva, Waterford, Wedgwood and Gracobaby.com. In 2003, I decided as a way to learn the new Microsoft .Net platform I would build my own ecommerce site as a side project to get up to speed on the new framework. I was also familiar with adhesive tape since I periodically helped out at a family-run tape converter (a company that takes jumbo log rolls of tape from manufacturers and slits them to standard-size tape rolls). The site launched in 2004 and for the first couple of years I periodically added new functionality. At the same time, I was also getting my Masters of Information Systems from NYU and built some aspects of the site as project work for some web-related classes I was taking. After a couple years the "side project" took on a life of its own and now its my primary line of work.

Since I'm a web developer at heart, over the last 6 years I've been much more likely to add new functionality to the web site (e.g., making the Tape Finder more robust or adding AJAX quick view popups to our search results and category-landing pages) than I've been on the marketing and social media sides. Guess that's why it's taken 5 years to get a blog up and running.

The purpose or goal of this blog will be to pass along interesting or useful information regarding the adhesive tape products we sell on the web site. From time to time I may also write about web development as far as how it relates to functionality on the FindTape.com site. So if you're looking for a one-stop-shop for tidbits on both adhesive tape and web development look no further.