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A Couple of Good Ideas
Out of targets? Duct tape newspaper to stand,put a square of black ducttape in center and shoot at it.
Foggy outside? Duct tape the top half of your headlights with black ducttape and drive on. --- thanks to ChanVan
Send us your ideas - they just might make it into one of our next books! And: Do you know anyone in the Military? click here

Added Protection
My son did not like the color of his helmet (it didn't match the new go-cart) so he took one of my rolls (notice the plural!) of duct tape and covered it up. The look is just perfect! --- Ken and Barry R.

Another Hoser's Hose Fix
I was on my way to Wilmington, NC (200 miles from home) with my friend when the car I was driving overheated. I managed to make it to a gas station at an exit and saw that a radiator hose had busted. I dried the hose off and went into the store there and bought some duct tape and tightly wrapped up the hose. I put water in the radiator and finished my drive to Wilmington and I made it home from Wilmington. It lasted for several more days, if not weeks. --- Aaron Y., Welcome, NC

Margarita Gasket
I realized the rubber ring on my blender was missing after inviting friends over for Margaritas one night. I used 4 3-inch pieces of duct tape. Laid 2 pieces side by side sticky side up and laid the other 2 pieces sticky side down on top going the other direction. I traced the bottom of the blender and cut out the ring and made Margaritas. --- Jelly Bean

Mouse Retriever
We had a terrible smell in our house -- a dead mouse kind of smell. We sniffed and searched for days before we figured out that the location of the dead critter was in a bathroom wall. My husband removed the toilet tissue dispenser (the kind that is set in a square hole in the wall) and was almost knocked out by the stench. Working with a mirror, a little flashlight and a wire coat hanger, he couldn't quite get the unfortunate mousie up and out of the hole without it falling back to the bottom. Then he made a sticky-side-out wrap of duct tape to put on the end of the coat hanger, and voila! One mouse corpse retrieved! He's thinking of just duct taping the toilet paper holder directly to the wallpaper now, since he had to take out the 2X4 stub that the thing is normally screwed to. --- JoAnn C.
Good idea! Here's another one: Maybe you could encase the mice in duct tape prior to letting them run about your house. That way, when they die, their rotting stench will be contained in the duct tape shroud.

Duct Tape Roses
Christina J. Makes Duct Tape Roses to give as gifts. Great idea. You've heard that "One rose traditionally means, 'I love you.'" Well, one rose made out of duct tape means "I'll love you forever!" Nice work, Christina!

Brief Encounter
Recently working at a cmp with globablly challenged children we came a cross one little boy who wore "birefs" and hated doing so. He was constantly pulling the tabs so they lost their sitckiness and his "biref" no longer stayed up. The solution of course was to duct tape him into his "biref". Oh the wonder of duct tape, he no longer has the chance to pull the tabs open. Another useful thing done with the duct tape at camp is to duct tape the undersides of bottom sheets to the undersides of mattresses to make bed-making easier in the morning, just don't tell our supervisor our secret. --- AJB "Duct Tape Diva", ON Canada

Flat Pack to the Rescue!
I was waiting in line for a ride in an amusement park, when a stranger told my friend that I had gum on my bum. I was really upset, because I didn't even sit down yet since I got to the park. I began to panic and rage, until I remembered that I brought a flat pack along with me in my bag. I ripped off a piece, and it pulled off the gum beautifully all in once piece, without any residue. A sticky situation was solved with a sticky solution! --- Rachel P, MA

Dad Doesn’t Sound So Strange to Us!
My dad used to be a beer/wine/pop distributor so he became addicted to the really large plastic recycle bags. He still gets them by the gross roll today! One of his many uses is to keep him clean when he is weed-eating or mowing his yard. He takes two bags and puts one on each leg (wrapping them over his shoes and legs). At the top of his leg, where the opening of the bag is (which the opening of the recycling bags is very large) he wraps duct tape around the bag and his leg - thus securing the bag to his leg. This way his pants and shoes don't get dirty. He has done this before as a full ensemble (top and bottom), but I have yet to get a picture. At first we as a family were just embarrased, now we just laugh at his peculiarities. --- Pam H.

Another Aircraft Repair Job
On a recent plane flight, while we were still at the gate, I noticed that my arm rest was coming apart, exposing a sharp, jagged piece of metal underneath. If we hit turbulence, I though to myself, I could die by the metal slashing my wrist, causing me to spurt blood and bleed to death. I advised a flight attendant of this serious hazard and the plane was grounded...until the flight crew located -- what else? -- duct tape, which was used to repair the arm rest until we reached our destination. Duct tape definitely saved my life. --- Kathleen V., Phoenix, AZ

Duct Tape Bowling
I work at a local university, cleaning dorms. My co-workers and I were bored out of our minds and started looking for things to do, besides work. We happened upon a roll of duct tape. We began rolling it back and forth, down a very long hallway. Soon we created obsticles with our equipment which in turn became targets. And when that wasn't exciting enough , we laid out phone books (opened) to use as jumps. Boy can that duct tape fly. It brings new meaning to 100mph tape. We like to call it "duct bowling" or "you break it, you tape it derby"! We never clean dorms without it! --- Kat in Kalamazoo

Rust Replacer
I was out for a ride in my old rusted out Toyota R200i, when I hit a bump and my rear-left fender and wheel well just fell off!!! (From the rust). I then proceeded to get my DUCT-TAPE out from under the truck seat, then I double folded the DUCT-TAPE and applied it to the rusty edges of the truck and stuck the fender back on. I then covered the whole back end of my Toyota with DUCT-TAPE so both sides where DUCT-TAPED, I must admit, it looks really cool!!! (Thanks to the DUCT-TAPE!). --- anonymous but happy driver

When I was in high school, just a couple years back, I lived near the ocean, most cars were dust buckets on wheels. My car, in particular was HELD TOGETHER with duct tape, everything from the bumpers, and headlights down to the fenders. Otherwise the rust would have caused it to crumble to pieces, but the duct tape held it together for me and is still being used by my sister now!! --- C. W., Spokane, Washington

Paw Protector
We use duct tape to wrap our hunting dogs' feet when there are a lot of sand burrs. Helps to keep the dogs hunting. --- Roger B.

Altered Tux
Duct tape use is not only a "guy thing". My husband agreed to be a groomsman in a buddy's wedding (why he did this is another story). Anyway, the tux was picked up the day of the wedding. Two hours before the wedding when he was getting dressed he discovered the pants were 6 inches too long and the tux shop was CLOSED. Needless to say, Me, the wife, came to the rescue !!! I promptly measured where the hem should be and duct taped the pants to the correct lenght. After properly taped a quick ironing will help to "seal" the tape to the material by melting the adhesive to the material. This guarantees a sure-fire hem in a pinch and the wedding pictures look great. Duct tape and a WOMAN saved the day again! --- ElleCi

Duct Tape Fashion
We won't ask exactly what she's doing, but suffice it to say that "Jet's" duct tape dress was all the rage at at the 2000 San Francisco Folsom Street Fair (photo on right). See more Duct Tape Fashion at our fashions pages.

Prevent Freezy Head
It was so cold one week at Eagle Lake that our heads were freezing while water skiing. I wrapped a old SF 49er hat completely with ducttape to keep the water off and we wore the hat skiing. It really keep my head warm and dry. I also fixed a really good cracked cigar by closing the crack with duct tape (I stopped smoking the cigar when the tape started burning). --- Jim R. I wonder if this hint would help when you are eating ice cream to prevent that ice cream head ache? Better go and research that. Hey, Jim, go out and buy four quarts of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey and New York Fudge Crunch!

Prevent Hot Foot
I am a metalsmith and when I was in graduate school we used duct tape in our iron casting class. We covered our shoes with duct tape just in case some of the molten iron would leak out of a cracked mold after it was poured and make it's way to our feet. Apparently duct tape can withstand 3,000 degrees of molten metal. (?) As far as I know they're still practicing this ritual at the University of Iowa Metals department! --- Sandra M., Sylmar, California

Loungin’ in Style!
This is a project that my friend and I completeled over spring break, made with 3/4'' PVC pipe for stability, but completely upholstered with silver and black Duct Tape! --- The Banana Slug Man

Camping Companion
While on a camping trip to the City of Rocks state park in southern New Mexico a couple of years ago with my friend Ronnie and his family, our wives had been giving us a hard time about our extensive use of duct tape during the outing (never go camping without it). One of the handiest uses is to unroll a length of several feet and while holding the free end up, let the roll hang down and spin it. Viola! Instant rope by which to hang lanterns or tie down tarps or even stretch between trees for a clothesline. Our wives thought they had seen our complete reportoire of applications when my 10 year old daughter fell and broke her arm while climbing. Ronnie ,who had trained as an EMT and worked in a hospital emergency room, and I cut up a cardboard box to form a splint and wrapped it in place with duct tape. We then cut strips of duct tape to make straps for a sling to immobilize the arm until we could get her to the nearest hospital which was 90 miles away. It also happened to be the hospital that Ronnie worked at so he took quite a ribbing when we brought my daughter into the e.r. and he had to tell the Dr. who that he had been the one to administer this field-expedient form of first-aid. Our wives have yet to let us live this down but I can tell you that as a professional maintenance man for a school district and a volunteer EMT on our local ambulance service, I rarely go anywhere without my duct tape and could probably write another whole chapter for you to put in your book. --- Cliff B, Ralls, Texas

Duct Tape Saves...
"How duct tape saved my arse." Not too long after my daughter was born, I tried to SQUEEZE myself into a pair of my pre-pregnant jeans. I got them zipped, but about two hours later, in a crowded area far from home... the seat ripped out of my jeans. UGH! What to do?!?! I didn't have anything to change into and no time to go home. I took the duct tape from my glove box, dropped my jeans, and taped them back together on the inside. This left an invisible seam on the outside, and once it warmed up, it wasn't even uncomfortable! The duct tape held so well that I kept the jeans for months and continued to use duct tape to patch them. --- Amber, Portland, OR

Duct Tape Cupid
I have a garden ornament cupid whos head fell off so we contact glued and duct taped it back on. I know we shouldnt have used contact glue only duct tape but hey it wasn't my choice. --- Fergy (We think it looks great like this - just leave the tape on. It looks like a scary gargoyle from Ghost Busters.)

Duct Tape Keeps Afghan Choppers in Flight
While reading my latest National Geographic edition (August 2001) I encountered some more duct tape uses. In an article about the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia (pages 72-73) there is a photo of a helicopter parked on the ground. What caught my attention were the drooping rotor blades that exhibited a dull silver color. Sure enough, they were covered in duct tape! The (partial) quote below the photo says, "...in Afghanistan the blades were full of holes, and we could still fly". (I believe they are talking about BULLET holes!) May I riff on Travis Tritt and say "10,000 feet tall and (almost) bulletproof". --- spotted by Rich Skoba

Duct Tape Cleans Up Mercury Spills
Jon Anderson found this valuable use of duct tape at the University of Davis' Wellness Website:
How to safely and correctly clean up a small [mercury] spill...:

Step One: Using a playing card, credit card or stiff piece of paper, gather up, scrape up or roll up the beads of mercury into one big bead or ball.
Then, several cleanup options are available:
Option A: Using an eyedropper or other squeeze-bulb dropper, carefully suck the mercury droplets up.
Option B: Using a common penny, dip the penny into the mercury and let the mercury adhere or bond to the penny. This may require more than one penny.
Option C: Using duct (duck) tape, place the tape over the mercury ball or beads and lift the mercury off the surface.
Step Two: Place the mercury beads, mercury-coated pennies, or tape with the mercury beads into a zip-lock plastic bag. Seal the bag securely, tape it shut, wrap it in newspaper and dispose properly.

Dog-Earred Duct Tape
Our veterinarian really loused up the cropping of our Great Dane's ears, and we also found out that Dukie was allergic to the tape he had used to "set" his ears in place. After several trips to the vet to no avail, and with ever increasingly stupid looking ears, we took matters into our own hands. My wife and I used duck brand duct tape to create a form for Dukie's ears and properly stand them up. He had no problem with allergic reactions, and we are relieved that his ears are no longer laying flat on top of his head. --- Larry R., Lake St. Louis, MO

Helmet Fastener
I am a sport bike rider... you know the crotch rockets that go really fast. Well anyway one time I was on a road trip and a screw to my helmet visor came off but lucky for me I had a small roll of duct tape under my seat. I slapped a strip of duct tape on and it worked like a charm. Well it worked until I came to one of my favorite backroad straight-a-ways. It is a bout a 2 mile stretch of road that you can see all the way to the next turn and I love to open up my bike on this road and see how fast it will go. That day I was able to get up to about 140mph before the duct tape started to peel off my helmet. Pretty incredible I thought and a darn good story. --- Lee K.

Duct Tape Bellows
Here's another interesting use for duct tape - a bellows. Basically I made a bellows for my camera using duct tape to cover the cardboard form. It worked as an extension bellows where the lens was mounted backwards on the front and the rear of the bellows was mounted to where the lens normally goes. This worked well for macro photography. --- gordon c.

Support Can be Beautiful...
You had a lot of different this about duct tape uses for prom. so i thought i would show you my duct tape use. My problem came up right before my date was going to pick me up so i yelled for my mom to get the duct tape, she kind of looked at me funny but she got it and we made me a better bra.. DUCT TAPE is great! --- B.J.M.

Duct Tape Stops Thumb Sucker
When my daughter was about one year old, my wife at that time (now my ex-wife) was trying to get her to stop sucking her thumb. This was recommended by the family doctor to prevent my daughter from ruining her teeth. My ex-wife tried everything by putting/wrapping various materials such as band aid, scotch tape, masking tape, etc. around my daughter's thumb just before she goes to bed. My daughter would just take it off and she kept sucking her thumb. I finally tried DUCT TAPE and it worked. My daughter could not get the duct tape off her thumb and she stopped sucking her thumb completely in about a week. Thought you might like to hear about this. --- J. Blanco

A Duct Tape Merit Badge?
If you write another book please mention duct tapes involvement in Boy Scouts. It is the unofficial tool of scouts and, at least in my troop, you are guaranteed to find almost as many rolls of duct tape as scouts at any given event. We even set up a duct tape meritbadge with requirements and an informative booklet. --- Scott Hastings

Where's That Trumpet Sound Coming From?
I play trumpet and have in the band at my high school and currently where I go to college and last year, I covered a trumpet entirely in camouflage duct tape. It still works and sounds great. --- Rusty S., Cave City, KY

Rower's Companion
I am a rower and duct tape sure comes in handy at our boathouse. We use duct tape to hold riggers (the things that hold the oars on the boat) together when traveling and to temporarily fix broken things. Some of the shoe laces have ripped out in one of our boats and thus making it hard to row because our feet slip out. We fix this problem with duct tape. Duct tape is also good for labeling things around the boathouse: boxes, shelves, people... One time my friend hurt her arm and instead of using athletic tape, my coach wrapped her arm in duct tape because it is waterproof and it wouldn't come off when she rowed. --- Ally K.

Duct Tape Window Cranks
I was at church a couple stories up. It was the middle of winter and someone decided it would be a good idea to open the window and remove the cranks so no one could close it all the way. Luckily there was a roll of duct tape lying there which I wrapped backwards around my hand and stuck it to the window, pulled the window close, and locked it. --- Chris, Ashland, OH

Cast Protector and Sole Savior
Working in the field of Orthopedic medicine for many years I have seen it all. One of the best ideas that I have seen and pass along to patients is the use of duct tape to repair a broken cast. It is tough enough to hold it together until the cast is ready to come off! It is also easy to keep clean as dirt wipes off easily.
Another use my son has just come up with is duct tape for his skateboarding shoes. The shoes were starting to fall apart so he covered them completely in duct tape and drew his logo on it. Now his shoes are as good as new and durable enough for the beating of skateboarding. --- M. Courson

A Gem of an Idea
My Aunt is a Geologist, and I help her gather rocks every summer. She and her grad students are all obsessed with duct tape, and quite frankly so am I. While out in the desert doing field work, we collect little pieces of rocks that have to be kept in their specific order. We needed something to bind the fragments of rocks together. A little Duct Tape, a Sharpie marker, and the bits of rock were packaged and labeled to be sent off ot the lab. --- R.Vegas

NASCAR Tape
I don't recall if the Tom Cruise movie "Days of Thunder" used any. But on any Sunday on Fox you'll see the miracle of 200 M.P.H. tape (duct tape) used on many of the cars racing in the NASCAR series. In fact this past weekend in Las Vegas, Jeff Gordon won the race with a little help from duct tape. The weather was cool, cool in regards to racing, and the pit crew decided the car would run faster if it were warmer. The pit crew added duct tape to the opening (the small air intake) on Jeff's car, decreased air flow, ran warmer, won the race. --- Chuck

Another Uplifting Story
A co-worker was to be in a wedding. She had been running all around without success trying to find a comfort fitting strapless bra. Finally we decided to use duct tape as strapless bra. Only bothered her when removing. We now call her "Duct Tape." --- Deb

Duct Tape Legacy
My step-father worked in a factory that made duct-tape. We had duct-tape up the yahoo (keeping it clean). He duct-taped everything. We camped every summer & duct-tape went camping too. We duct-taped the mail box, which I see you have a picture of. We learned to say duct-tape at a young age, properly. When he retired, he also had a life-time supply of duct-tape. I always had two rolls in my car or truck trunk, two or three rolls in my apartment & once had some in my pocketbook. I'm 41 years old & still have duct-tape in the house. I'm down to three rolls, so I must get more. It's the best darn (keeping it clean) item a household could have. I have even used it to hold wrapping paper together at Christmas time. My girls are 2 & 3 1/2, so they don't get it yet but the tradition will go on. --- Dawn

Hang Ten
We turned an old sled into a cool water toy! We just duct taped four or five styrofoam "noodles" to the sides and we were hangin' ten! ---rju4

Hem on a Roll
This is a true story, I have two young children (seven and nine) and they grow very quickly and keeping them in clothing is tough. We bought my daughter a pair of jeans that were too long and we did not want to have to cut them off or hem them as it changes every month. We were rushing one morning to get to school and my daughter wanted to wear this pair of jeans that were too long, so I took out the roll of duct tape and taped the pants to the correct length. My daughter wore them to school with no one the wiser and they held perfectly. Now I use the duct tape whenever she wants to wear them and I can adjust the length as she grows. It is the perfect solution and you can't tell by looking at them. --- Happy Duct Tape Parent

Duct Tape Road Trip
Matt N. and his friend John, both of Shorview, MN, made a roadtrip from Minnesota to Washington state in a pickup truck that was, well, had seen its better days shall we say. Click on the sign on the right to see how duct tape saved the day.

Duct Tape High Jinx
One long and boring night in the dorms my roommate and a friend of ours decided to seek revenge on our annoying neighbors. After we knew the had gone to bed our fun began... we started with long strips of duct tape across the door frame, next we took strips from the top of the door frame to the bottom. The end result was a duct tape net across their door. It was a wonderful sound in the morning to hear them open the door and see our surprise, the best part was they never found out it was us! --- Liz

Duct Tape Saves Second Honeymoon
My wife and I were taking a trip to Lake Tahoe, California for our 10 year anniversary, when we ran into a snow storm. The windshield wipers froze so bad that the clips holding the blades to the arms broke. In the middle of nowhere on a two lane mountain highway I was not worried. I whipped out my ever handy roll of Duct Tape and after some road side first- aid continued on my way. The wipers worked better than they had originally and held up through all the rain, snow and ice during our six day stay. Once again Duct Tape saves the day (and our second honeymoon). --- Dave M.

No Turtle Soup... Yet
I have found quite an interesting use for duct tape. One day my father put his pet turtle in its outdoor pen. Somehow it managed to escape its pen and Gus, the turtle, went into the road. A good ole SUV ran over it (that is a tire ran over it twice!) and we found poor Gus with a cracked shell. We did not have super glue in the house so we made a make-shift cast of Duct tape for Gus, holding his shell together. Well now Gus is still alive and kicking. --- Tia

Self-Administered First Aid for Head Wound
I'd been building a log cabin in a remote northern Alberta location and had taken the two hour, four-wheel drive trip into the site alone to drop off some supplies. After placing some roofing materials in the rafters a chunk of wood fell and hit me in the head splitting it open from the top right down to my eyebrow. The bleeding was profuse, and knowing that i'd have to use both my hands to drive myself to safety, I used my shirt and about 30 wraps of duct tape to create a helmet-like compress bandage on my head. The doctors had one hell of a time. --- Joel Hynes

Feline Grooming
The best tool by far for removing loose hair from cats is duct tape. Forget all those expensive brushes, combs, gloves and gadgets, even pet grooming vacuums (which scare my cats to death!). Just press a strip of duct tape on the cat from neck to tail, then gently and slowly pull it off. Pull in the direction of the hair for light grooming, against the hair direction for heavier hair removal. It takes about five or six strips for an adult cat, and a few small pieces for the head and legs. It's quiet, gentle and leaves no residue on the coat. --- Rae Stone

Eat Your Heart Out Midas!
Recently while driving my 90 VW fox to an important meeting, I was horrified when I heard this awlful sudden rumbleing and clanking I pulled over only to discover my muffler and tailpipe had come apart. With no time or money to call a repairman I remembered the duck tape my fiancé always kept in the trunk. I thought the tape might burn on the hot exhaust so I looked around and found a tin can and slipped one end over the tailpipe and the other end over the neck of muffler ducktaped the entire thing together. Needless to say I made my meeting and the tape held till payday, a few days later. Ducktape really saved the day. --- Sarah Brown

OUCH!
I am in a medieval recreation group, called the Society for Creative Anachronism. We do a number of things, but the part that has to do with duct tape, is this: We make our weapons out of it! Yes, we duct tape the heck out of a piece of rattan and hit each other with it (yes, we wear armour :-) ). My brother was at an event and saw this happen. One of the fighters had gotten all the way out to the 'warfield', and discovered that he did not have his jockstrap with him. He had the 'cup' part, but not the jockstrap. Guess what he used some duct tape for? Yup, that's it. the only problem is that he forgot to tape the cup ON TOP of his underwear. Yeah!!! Everything went fine for the rest of the day (guess he didn't need to use the facilities?), until he went to remove the cup. Well, as we all know, duct tape, when it is heated, tends to get even stickier. Apparently, you could hear the screams of this fellow from about 2 miles away as he was given an impromptu bikini wax. --- Quentin Brown

Prom Gown Repair
Duct tape has come to the rescue many a time. One year at prom, a girl’s dress completely ripped in the back... that got duct-taped together; another girl's strap broke off, we duct taped it back together. Then this year, another broken strap and one girl's dress kept falling down, so yup that got duct taped on. So see, never go to an important occasion without duct tape! --- Stephanie from MA
We're guessing that if the gown had been made from duct tape in the first place - it wouldn't have ripped. Check out our Duct Tape Prom Fashion Collection.

Band Aid
My high school band lived by duct tape. We had instruments held together by it. We even made drum stands with pvc pipe and duct tape. We had uniforms whose inseams were made of duct tape and hats covered in painted duct tape. There was no band budjet so we had to be creative in inexpensive ways. It just so happens that duct tape helped whenever we needed it. The dancers and colour guard used it in most of their props and flags. We even used to duct tape the new band freshmen to the flag pole on game day. --- Heather C., Biloxi, MS

$1000 Duct Tape Hair Removal
You know, in my previous life as a country DJ, I held one of those "what would you do for $1,000?" contests in a bar. One of the contestants handed me a roll of duct tape and told me to remove all the hair from his chest. I think I had more fun than he did. --- Katie P., KRLD

Bikes on the Wing
I duck-taped two bicycles (one to each wing strut) and flew to West Virginia from Ohio for a bike ride at the New River. I guess that makes it 120 mph tape! --- "Orville" (photo on left - obviously)

Tick Be Gone
I have a lake house in a woodsy, tick infested area, and our dog often came in with one or more ticks on her that hadn't attached yet. Since ticks don't drowned very easily, and are messy to burn, I came up with the idea of taking duct tape and sticking it to the tick, then wraping it up and throwing it away. Its worked pretty well, and can also be done on peoples. --- Leigh G.

Fishing for More Duct Tape Uses
While fishing with friends in Panama Beach, FL, I caught something large and it was taking all my line. I saw the end of the spoolcoming up and didn't quit know what to do. Out of the corner of my eye there it was the answer to my dilemma: a new roll of fishing line and duct tape with a friend's help we taped the 2 lines together and after a 20 minute battle and now in my freezer is the size 13 1/2 eee work boot with two stone crabs and a small piece of the the wreck which we were fishing on. --- Jill Stephens

Bringin’ Her Up Right!
Last year my fourteen year old daughter, Emily, was getting ready for her Cotillion dance. The theme was "Hollywood Nights." Her grandmother had given her a great pair of silver, sparkly stockings to wear. However, we had neglected to get a garter belt, etc. to hold up the old-fashioned stockings. We got out the duct tape and taped the sparkly stockings on. She looked stunning and danced the night away! --- Susie Daniel

NASA Gossip
There was an initial problem with the first space shuttle where the heat tiles fell off during an early tests. On one such test, the space shuttle was mounted on top of an airplane [Boeing 747] and flown, I believe, cross country. Many of the tiles were lost on the trip. My (then) brother-in-law was on one of the shuttle design teams so I couldn't help but give him a hard time. When I told him that they should have used duct tape he replied that was exactly why the ones that stayed...had. --- John Sullivan For more NASA stories, click here.

Duct Tape Saves Again!
Ross B, of Vinings, GA grabbed the duct tape when he noticed that some teens had done a number on his mailbox. We think it's a marked improvement on the previous design, Ross!

Spider Trap
I HATE spiders. My friend Brian has found a proven method of dealing with them. He just peels an appropriate amount of Duct tape off the roll and lays it down sticky side up in the path, or known path of the little rascals, and when they tromp across the duct tape they are trapped! Then he neatly folds the remainder of the duct tape over the nasty little thing and stomps on it. This really works, and there is no spider guts mess to clean off the floor afterward. Jist drop the spider remains, duct tape and all into the trash. --- Gary

A Book Cover Like No Other
All my high school classes require that you keep your text book covered at all times. The one's they provide never last for more than a couple days and even brown paper bags don't cut it for long. So I got different colored Duct Tape and covered all my books in brown paper and then wrapped the brown paper in duct tape. Now they're all colour coded and, since most books are about the same size, I've used the same book covers since I was a freshman, and I'm a senior now. I couldn't tell you how many times I've spilt stuff on them and I've never had to pay for a book. --- Chris, Ashland, OH

Duct Tape Saves Vacation
We invested in a used camper and started out on our first camping trip to the woods. Going down the freeway at 65 miles a hour, the whole bottom seam of the cab-over part of the camper snapped loose. We stopped at the next rest area and duct taped the sucker up real good. It held the whole weekend through the infamous Oregon spring rains. Without our duct tape, we would have had to return home and disappointed our grandson. I never leave home without my duct tape. --- Phyllis Cline

Retaining Clip? We Don't Need No Stinking Retaining Clip!
When a small retaining clip broke on my friends battered but well loved 1984 Ford Tempo, we couldn't find the clip by itself. You could only buy it as a whole two piece axle assembly for wads of $$$. None of us had the money to fix it. So out came the duct tape. (which we should have done before even looking for the part) We slid the two halves of the axles back into the balancer, cleaned them and then started duct taping like mad. After a while our arms were getting mad so one of us got the idea to jack the car up and put it in gear so that the axle would turn and wind the duct tape on much faster. To make a long story short, He drove it that way for a month before getting scared and buying a new axle. (Some people never learn do they?) --- Bryan D.

Banned Book Remedy
When traveling in Myanman (Burma) the Armours found out that the "Lonely Planet" guide book that they used was banned there. They remedied the situation by duct taping over the title to disguise the book. So far they have not been deported!

They were also in Quito, Equator when one of them had their purse bottom slashed (a new way to pickpocket), They repaired the purse with - what else? Duct Tape.

Glove Extender
No matter how much I pay for good leather work gloves I manage to wear out in the fingertips long before the rest of the glove. After a couple weeks yard work, or preparing flower and vegetable beds I'd wear a hole through a couple of fingertips, the gloves fill with dirt and it's more $$ in the trash. I used to go through 4 or 5 pairs a year. But now whenever the fingertips wear through I apply two or three layers of duct tape and keep right on working, reapplying duct tape as needed. It's flexible and water proof, perfect material for gardening gloves. My last pair made it through two seasons from planting to harvest. --- Rae Stone

Team Duct Tape
These guys pulled off a 6th-place finish at the Rocky Mountain Rally in Calgary (May 2001), just to follow their 4th overall at the Bighorn Rally the previous week. This is against the best rally cars in Canada (plus a few from the States). Shows you what the judicious use of duct tape can accomplish. --- Submitted by Shayne Morrow
PS - Third place winner, Jean Sebastien Besner, drew a big chuckle from the podium when he thanked his sponsors for getting him to the finish line, adding, "'Dat, and a little bit of duct tape..." Even guys with $100,000+ race machines know what it really takes to win!

First Aid: Duct Aid
I got a pretty deep and long cut the other day across my chest the other day. I used about five bandaids the first day to try and keep the infection out, but when I went to replace the bandage the next day, I was out of bandaids. Thinking fast, I grabbed an old undershirt, cut it into a strip as long as the wound which I then placed on a slightly larger piece of Duct Tape. After dabbing some hydrogen peroxide on the cloth, I then stuck the bandage onto the wound. Its cheaper and more effective at stopping infection than a number of individual bandaids. --- Lord Alexander the Pretty Good
On the contrary - duct tape is often used for first aid applications (even by doctors).

					Kevin Uses Duct Tape Instead of Leather (left and lower left) Kevin M. made his back pack and three fold wallet out of 100% pure duct tape. He also makes bracelets, neckties, etc.. His preferred brand of tape? Same as ours: Duck® brand Duct Tape! It’s the best for quality and for variety of colors, including their new X-Treme® tape in bright fluorescent colors.
		Duct Tape Secures Virgin Mary (right) Bob C. from Minneapolis found the Virgin Mary and some holiday lights being held in place with duct tape. Appropriate, since in Scandinavia they call it “Jesus Tape” and Minneapolis is full of Scandinavians.

Duct Tape Saves Traveler’s Toe
On a recent trip to Italy I had cause to use duct tape. I had broken my little toe just before I left. I had brought along some tape, to tape the two toes together but ran out. One of my traveling companions had duct tape in her purse, she carries it everywhere, so each day I would cut two small strips to use to tape the toes together. Do you know, of course you would, that worked better than the tape I had brought. Just one of the "many" uses of duct tape! --- Barb O., Oak Harbor, WA