Packing Tape and Large Cardboard Boxes
Packing tape, together with a properly chosen cardboard box is another stepping stone on the ladder of good shipping practices. Packing tape is a member of the pressure sensitive tape family. This suggests that no water or heat is needed for the tape to work – manual or machine pressure would be enough to make the adhesive stick to surfaces with some limitations. Packing tape is generally made of paper, plastic or cloth – this is referred to as backing. The backing then contains one or two sides of sticky glue with various grade – hence, single or double sided tape.
The backing of the tape often designates its properties and designed usage. Paper backing would normally suggest light use, such as masking tape or frog tape. This type of tape is much preferred in the painting industry since it sticks lightly to surfaces and is a good for protecting surfaces from accidental painting over. On the other hand, masking tape has poor qualities when used for packing – it lacks the needed strength. Another example of poor packing tape is duct tape. While it is probably the most popular tape, it was designed to wrap up boxes of ammunition back in early 1900s. While it is very strong and durable, its use to close and seal large and heavy cardboard boxes is guaranteed to cause trouble.
Most appropriate choices for packing tape are brown and clear packing tape, parcel tape, custom tape etc. Custom packing tape is normally brown or clear packing tape with some company information or other commercial/contact data on it. Use of any of the above packing tapes is equally good as long as the correct width of tape is applied over closures and edges. In cases where extreme strength is needed, filament tape can be used. It has plastic of fiberglass shavings built into its sides and is very durable.
About the Author
The author runs a few blogs with news and updates on corrugated fiberboard, shipping best practices, packaging trends, green initiatives etc. They are updated regularly and can be followed from the large cardboard boxes central.
In addition the other blogs can be found here:
- small cardboard boxes
- large shipping boxes and best ways to ship, pack and insure contents
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