How clear adhesive tape is made

Clear sticky tape began in 1930, when Richard Drew at 3M put adhesive on cellophane.

stations: 6
things upstream: 35
raw sources: 9
steps from the ground: 9

The short version

Clear tape is a transparent plastic or cellophane film coated on one side with a pressure-sensitive adhesive. Corona treatment roughens the film so glue grips it. The coated film dries in an oven, winds onto a wide jumbo roll, and is slit into narrow strips rewound onto cores.

Make the clear film

Most modern tape uses polypropylene film that has been stretched in both directions. This stretching makes it strong and crystal clear. Older tape used cellophane.

Goes in
Polypropylene
Corona-treat one side

A high-voltage discharge roughens one face of the film, so the adhesive will wet it evenly and grip.
Coat one side with adhesive

An acrylic or hot-melt adhesive is spread on the treated face in an even layer, and the film passes through a drying oven. The adhesive then sticks on contact, with no water or heat needed to activate it.

Goes in
Adhesive
Wind a jumbo roll

The coated film is wound onto a very wide mother roll, many times wider than any roll you could buy.
Slit to width

A slitting machine divides the jumbo roll into narrow rolls, which are rewound onto cardboard cores.

Goes in
Cardboard
Pack into dispensers

Finished rolls are packed in dispensers or cartons and sent out.

End of the lineClear adhesive tape

Worth repeating

The Scotch name came from a 1925 joke: a painter testing Drew's first masking tape told him to take it back to his Scotch bosses, meaning stingy.
Peeling tape in a vacuum can give off enough X-rays to leave an image of a finger on photographic paper.
Clear tape with a matte finish is sold as Scotch Magic Tape or called invisible tape.