Can paper tape last outdoors and is it resistant to UV rays?
Typically, masking tape is used indoors. Consider, for example the typical paper painter’s tape, which finds its use inside apartments to protect baseboards, furniture, tiles, lamps, doors, windowsills, and window frames from the paint used to paint the walls.
Then there’s tape meant for industrial painting, which is used inside painting departments, and which is often subjected not only to paint, but also to drying cycles inside the oven, thus requiring resistance to high temperatures.
However, masking tape is also used outdoors in a few select, specific usage cases.
In that case, of course, there are threats that those who use masking tape indoors do not have to deal with. First, there’s ultraviolet rays, which can significantly deteriorate adhesive tape’s shape, adhesiveness and, therefore, its grip strength.
But there are also other threats, such as humidity, which is often felt quite acutely outdoors. Because of this, special paper tape that is able to withstand ultraviolet rays has been developed: let’s have a closer look at what it is.
The threat of UV rays for outdoor-use paper tape
We all know, in principle, what UV – or, ultraviolet – rays are. In physics, UV rays are defined as “ultraviolet radiation”, that is, the range of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength between the light visible through our eyes and that typical of X-rays.
The expression ultraviolet is used, meaning “beyond violet”, because this colour is the one that presents – among the colours visible by human beings – the highest frequency. Ultraviolet rays make up 10% of the total light emitted by the Sun.
As we all know by now, ultraviolet rays are dangerous: without the Earth’s atmosphere as a filter, UV rays would cause serious damage to any living being.
But that’s not all: ultraviolet rays hit more or less violently any surface, breaking down the molecules that it is made of.
Hence the need to use ultraviolet-resistant paper tape when it becomes necessary to apply masking tapes that will not be removed immediately. But which kind of tape is ultraviolet-resistant tape, and what is it made of?
Outdoor and UV rays resistant paper tape
Our e-commerce site, within the section dedicated to masking tape, offers a whole category dedicated to outdoor and ultraviolet resistant paper tape. Most of the paper rolls are washi paper tape.
What does it mean? Instead of having a normal paper support, they are made with special paper. Thus, it is good to know that washi paper is a type of traditional Japanese paper tape strictly manufactured with natural fibres, such as hemp, mulberry bark, bamboo, rice, or wheat.
This particular Japanese paper, when compared with “normal” Western one, shows a greater resistance in relation to various degradation factors: guaranteeing this higher resistance is the choice of the raw materials used, i.e., longer plant fibres.
In our e-commerce site, you’ll be able to find outdoor-use washi paper tape with different level of thickness, between 80 µm and 145 µm, with a width between 19 and 50 mm.
Due to their peculiar composition, the best washi paper outdoor-use tape rolls can withstand ultraviolet rays for up to 60 days, as well as temperatures above 100 °C (37.7 °F).
Not just UV rays
Finally, it should be reiterated that paper tape for outdoor masking work doesn’t just need to withstand just ultraviolet rays. The moment the threshold of a building is crossed, other atmospheric agents, starting with increased humidity, for example, will be met as well.
Other factors are also to be taken into account, such as temperature changes, which on average are much greater outdoors than indoors.
For these reasons, when the use of masking tape outdoors which must remain in place for a long time is necessary, it is then essential – in order not to compromise the final result – to use paper tape designed specifically for this context.