Perfect Paper Tape Tubes
by Frank Heasley, Ph.D.

It's a real pain to try and roll paper tape evenly. I'm pretty good at
it, but I've never been satisfied with the appearance of the tubes as a
result. No matter how you try, they're always "off" by a bit at the
ends. Now I've found a way to make tubes out of paper tape that's not
only faster, it produces tubes that are as perfect as you can get.

The following example for preparing tubes for experimental rocket motors
will illustrate the method:

Tools and Materials:

Tape - Fiberglass reinforced, brown paper gummed - 2.75" wide
Plastic packing tape, 2" wide
Mandrel: 1/2" plastic or metal rod or tube
Pressue cooker

Procedure:

First, roll up a pile of tubes as follows: Cut pieces of the paper tape
approximately 20" long. Place a piece of the cut tape on a dry surface
with the glue side up. Roll it DRY onto the mandrel.

Square up the ends and twist the paper on the mandrel to tighten it,
Secure the tube by wrapping it with 1-2 turns of plastic tape. Take it
off the mandrel.

** Now for the trick **

Put all of the dry tubes into a basket in the pressue cooker with about
1" of water in the bottom. Don't let them get wet! Heat up the cooker
with the lid on and the valve open until it's steaming well. Turn down
the heat and close the valve. Continue cooking for around 10 minutes
(time will vary depending on tube thickness). Remove the cooker from the
heat, open the valve, take off the top and remove your tubes. Allow the
tubes to dry as usual.

Any sort of paper tabe with water activated glue should work. Tubes
prepared in this manner are as hard and strong as those that are
commercially available, the ends are perfectly aligned, and the inside
diameters are exact. You can make sure they've been cooked long enough
by cutting one open to reveal the layers. They should all be securely
glued.

You can use different colors of plastic tape if you want to. In the
example given, the extra 3/8" of bare paper at each end doesn't seem to
affect the final product. Monokote or PVC contact paper used for lining
shelves should also work, and would cover the tubes completely.

Frank Heasley
FHeasley@chemistry.com


Retyped by me (Andy K.), thus I am fully responsible for any errors. If
I had scanned the article, any errors would be blamed on my OCR software
and cheap-ass scanner. Reprinted here WITHOUT permission from PGI Digest
#99. I apologize if I have violated any laws or regulations governing
reprinted material from PGI Bulletins - please inform me if I have so
that I may not do so again in the future!

Stay green,

Andy K.