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PRO Artist Tape...the best option for non-permanent, clean removal marking


Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

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Amazon.com: ProTapes Artist Tape Flatback Printable Paper Board or Console Tape, 60 yds Length x 1" Width, White (Pack of 1)

PRO Tapes make the best artist tape I've used, and I've tried quite a few brands. It works great for film handling marking camera gear, boxes or plastic boxes and jars. You can tape film down or mark reels and cans. Peels off clean. I've also used it as a gaffer's tape, albeit a less durable, but still good enough option, if you need it in a pinch.

Blue painter's tape is crap compared to this. Drafting tape is half-ass. Really drafting tape is many times just a thinner variety of masking tape, sometimes with less stick...sometimes not. It is a crapshoot if it will wreck the material. I trashed all my drafting tape. 

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Artist tape comes in all sizes from 1/4 inch to 2 inches...although not all colors are in all sizes. Even so, there is a large number of colors available to allow for color coding. I use this tape for permanent marking as well. It sticks great, but it is always nice to have a clean removal option instead of digging out the acetone or 'Goof Off' and marring plastic surfaces trying to get the sticky off.

But as a warning...I've only used this tape for a few years. I have not had it on something for 10 years and tried to remove it. So, this is my experience with it with that caveat.

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These are the kind of dispenses you use for the tape. You can buy dispensers to hold single or multi-reels of tape for up to 3 rolls. When you put the tape on, aways leave a little tab sticking up on one end that you bend around to stick on the tape. Makes removal very easy. 

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Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Popular Culture Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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  • 1 month later...

Just an update...

I finished up most of my archival tests for the season today. One of the things I tested was this artist tape. While the tape works great indoors, it does not work good in the sun long term.  2-1/2 months of sun made the tape brittle, and it could not be removed without scrapping it off. 

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So you can work out how long it will last indoors by figuring the ratio of light levels. Artificial light is far dimmer than sunlight, so it should be good for quite some decades.

Very useful test btw. I have some cans I've labelled just with masking tape, and some has lost its "stick" after less than 5 years near a window So I've moved the cans to a shadier spot. Of course the Sharpie writing is going too but they're all marked on the top of the can as well, and that's in the stack, so out of the light.

Anyone with any amount of film is an archivist now. Till I was on a 16mm. music shoot a few weeks ago I hadn't seen film under 25 years old for 30 years. But the relative importance of the actual material is presumably much less now- the directors actually let me run freshly developed colour neg on the Steenbeck, because it had already been scanned and was no longer important to them except as a prop. That would have been a no-no back in the day- Steenbecks are famous for being gentle on film, but it's a relative term. In fact we never saw our neg as students, it was always filed at the lab.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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No, you can't work out 'how long' with any of my tests. The fade and archival tests are not proper, anal tests like a laboratory would do. The sun in the N.E. USA is puny and spotty. To do any concrete results you would need some type of meter that gives you total light received. For instance, if you did the tests in the Mojave Desert you would get different results than I do. 

But I don't really care about all that. For instance. AZO DVD's die after about 3 weeks of sun. Whether it is 3 weeks +1 day or 2 weeks + 5 days; is variable upon the strength of the sun at the time of the tests. I'm just looking at the test results in generalities. 

If I put a M-Disc in the sun for a year and it is fine, that tells me what I need to know. If I put an inkjet print in the sun for a year and no fading results from the year of sun, that tells me something. Now, maybe this year's sun strength was less or more than last year's sun; but it still says something about an item's archival qualities versus something that dies after 3 weeks of sun. 

Interesting about your film work. How did you do it in the old days, just work with a dupe neg? Even if scanned, they should take care of their OCN. It is all security. 

Make some videos of you at work with the Steenbecks / etc.

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22 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

No, you can't work out 'how long' with any of my tests. The fade and archival tests are not proper, anal tests like a laboratory would do. The sun in the N.E. USA is puny and spotty. To do any concrete results you would need some type of meter that gives you total light received. For instance, if you did the tests in the Mojave Desert you would get different results than I do. 

But I don't really care about all that. For instance. AZO DVD's die after about 3 weeks of sun. Whether it is 3 weeks +1 day or 2 weeks + 5 days; is variable upon the strength of the sun at the time of the tests. I'm just looking at the test results in generalities. 

If I put a M-Disc in the sun for a year and it is fine, that tells me what I need to know. If I put an inkjet print in the sun for a year and no fading results from the year of sun, that tells me something. Now, maybe this year's sun strength was less or more than last year's sun; but it still says something about an item's archival qualities versus something that dies after 3 weeks of sun. 

Interesting about your film work. How did you do it in the old days, just work with a dupe neg? Even if scanned, they should take care of their OCN. It is all security. 

Make some videos of you at work with the Steenbecks / etc.

It's a good "ball-park" figure though, as I think you folks say.

I was never in the business in the film era, only a student. You'd never put neg on any sort of machine, only workprints. I had a client recently who was revisiting a 1996 BBC project for a new show. He needed to shoot his original Tx print being run on the Steenbeck. Unfortunately the BBC had disposed of it and archived the workprint instead in error. It even had the burnt- in timecode. It suited the aesthetic of the new show, but unfortunately the footage didn't make picture lock. The casualty rate of the scenes featuring the Steenbeck on shows I'm hired for is pretty high, about 75%. But I just think of the money- poor editing decisions aren't my problem?. But I have my revenge: I'm actually on screen in my latest show.

I have instructional videos on the Steenbeck for clients on my Youtube channel,

tinyurl.com/londonsteenbeck

but they're pretty utilitarian. I'll think about some more now you mention it.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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I could link you to them........but you'd still have to download. Hmm. Maybe the rustbelt needs some WD-40.

Top 2 plates for picture, bottom 2 for sepmag sound. You also use the right-hand mag sprocket for comopt and (very rare) commag (stripe). But I did have one commag job, and it more than paid for a brand-new stripe head.

Pretty intermittent work as I have no contacts in the industry (well, I do now, but not many, and I don't know how to exploit them) and it's a pretty rarefied specialism. By definition no-one needs me again, because they view the film, take it away to scan, and...........that's that.

'19 was my best year, right before you-know what. '21 picked up then nothing for 18 months till the 16mm. show I mentioned.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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