Occasionally, I get a call (a complaint, really) from a customer who is unhappy because a tape product they ordered was described as being two inches wide, but turned out to really be only about 1 7/8″ in width. They’re not happy, and I don’t blame them. This is usually someone who wants to use tape as a trim or binding product rather than for securing cables, and they discover that they did not get what they expected. All we can do is apologize, refund their money and honor our guarantee.
We’ve been selling tape for a long time and the change in width came about 5 or 6 years ago. Rather than raise prices, all the major US domestic tape manufacturers changed their standard from being two inches wide to 48 mm wide. For most users, this did not really impact their ability to use the tape and they never noticed the change.
Unfortunately, the tape makers changed the width but did not change the description. The metric equivilent is usually marked in parentheses on the box (each 1 inch in width is actully 24 mm) but this info rarely appears in the tape description and some manufacturers fail to acknowledge the disrepancy at all.
Odder still, while tape makers converted to metric equivilents for tape widths, they continued to use the imperial measuring standard for lengths. Most tape continues to be offered in the industry standard of 60 yds. Nobody really has an explanation for mixing the two standards. It really servers the manufacturer and no one else.
We have include info on this width standard in our website, but as long as the major manufacturers continue to label standard gaffers tape and duct tape as being two inches in width, we’ll have to stick with their standard.
GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. Look to us first to meet your gaffers tape needs.
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