One of the greatest joys of learning about the wide world of manufacturing is finding out that for any product, there are engineers somewhere dedicating their concentrated efforts to making it better, less expensive or easier to use. This high-tech is a great example of that: it delivers a solution to a niche problem.
It’s no surprise it comes from 3M, one of the most innovative companies in the world: in 2017, the company spent about 6% of total revenue on research and development, compared to an average of 2.3% among 190 other industrial companies. The company is consistently ranked just behind Apple and Google in Booz & Company’s list of the world’s most innovative companies. For good reason: one of the company’s most popular products, masking tape, was invented when a 3M automotive sandpaper salesman watched workers struggle to apply two-tone paint jobs cleanly, and he experimented with the sandpaper’s backing and adhesive components to invent the ubiquitous roll of masking tape.
Watch this video to learn about another interesting product.
The problems this product tackles are edge protection, packaging and strapping. Whether you’re a manufacturer shipping product to an end customer or to another operation, or receiving materials from a supplier, it’s important how those materials are packaged. You can sink a lot of time and effort into carefully finishing, deburring and polishing an edge, and then give it to a shipping company who couldn’t care less what happens to it.
8899 HP clean removal strapping tape is a tensilized polypropylene product, commercially available in the USA. The tape is ideal for strapping and bundling in the metal industry. It’s a clean removal product, so you can use it for edge protection and remove it without adhesive residue. The tape has a tensile strength of 170 pounds per inch, as well as abrasion and nick resistance, so if you were to cut it or abrade it, the tensilized polymers in it would hold, preventing it from ripping.
Whether you’re bundling rod or tube or packaging consumer goods for shipping, this product is designed to leave no gummy or tacky residue, while providing enough strength to hold tight. The tape should be peeled off, not cut.
Despite it’s humble stature as a simple roll of tape, 8899HP spent several years of development in the 3M lab to develop the clean removal adhesive to adhere to different substrates without leaving residue.
For more information on 3M’s history of innovation, check out their website.