Using hockey stick tape on print bed

Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone ever tried this? I just put a few pieces down on my bed and started a print, will update later with final results.
So far the first layer makes my face like this:
=D

Hockey stick tape (Icehockey) feels almost like jeans, and gives a nice grip..
I have this tingly feeling it might alleviate alot of warping problems for non-heated beds...
Have to see how difficult it is to actually remove it though.

Kinda got excited about this test and wanted to share it.

Here's a pic of a print just starting with the tape.


Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2013 05:30PM by dustynus.

I was wondering the same thing about skateboard grip tape. Hockey stick tape sounds like a cool idea.

another word for it is called "friction tape" and many comes with double sided adhesive. It is also pretty cheap too. I also did considered using it for the bed but I am using it for other projects right now. Maybe i'll do tests to confirm it's potential for the bed later once you succeed. Please do give us an update.

Ya I saw your post with the skateboard tape, and helped inspire me to try other possible tapes.

Ok so normally with the blue tape, the edges start to pop off the bed, with this, I didn't see one spot on the whole part which came off.

The whole thing was stuck on the tape. On the first layer, with blue tape if I touched the plastic line hard enough, it will come off (depending how low the nozzle is). In this case, the nozzle height wasn't super low and it felt pretty strong to touch, I even had the print with a fan directly on it, which would occasionally push up parts with blue painters tape alone.

Overall:

1. First layer definitely has a stronger bond compared to blue tape.
2. It did warp slightly however, with the tape underneath coming up with the part, even though the edges stayed down. Not 100% perfect, but for my purposes quite reasonable. Have to try to fix the tape maybe not directly ontop of a previous layer of blue tape might help this, not sure.
3. Part came of fairly easy. The one side of the tape is pretty soft, and creates a kind of almost granular soft finish on the bottom of the part.

For me, trying to print big parts on unheated bed is tricky, and I would tape the edges of parts down to hold them down on the blue tape to secure my parts. This is definitely a step up for me in having parts stay on the bed.

I would think double sided is too sticky and the nozzle would stick itself to the bed.

I just started a 2nd print after pushing the tape down firmly on my bed (it's sitting above another 2 layers of painters tape). I think I'll keep using this for the next few prints of a prusa for a friend, as it seems easier for the big parts to stick, and am kind of running out of blue tape anyways
Sorry for the kinda poor photo quality.

update: back using blue tape, i managed to make quite a few prints with the friction tape, but was some rounding happening and having to refix tape after taking a piece off.

Seems useful to force prints sticking, but is pretty sticky, and i doubt it would be good with a heated bed

Adhesives tend to release in the presence of heat. For instance, a trick to removing dried masking tape is to heat it with a hair drier. I would think the same could be said for friction tape, although you can test that yourself. Presumably, this is for PLA printing, (ABS folks can always use a wash of acetone or a thin slurry of acetone and abs as an adhesion helper), so I suppose it's not as much of a concern as it might be with ABS, where the expected bed temperature generally exceeds the boiling point of water