The first transparent adhesive tape was created in the year 1930 by a young engineering school dropout named Richard G. Drew. The idea of a transparent tape was the extension of the masking tape that Drew invented in the early 1920s. When Drew saw auto painters struggling with dual-tone auto painting, he decided to find an easier way to mask the unpainted section of the car. He experimented for almost two years with things like vegetable oil and glue glycerine until he came up with pressure sensitive glycerine based glue tapes. The name ‘Scotch’ was the result of a frustrated co-workers remark to Drew. He asked Drew to take the tapes to the ‘Scotch bosses’ and ask them to layer them with more glue. Then in 1929, he decided to try a similar experiment with cellophane paper to create a waterproof packaging material for insulation batts that were manufactured by 3M comapny. The transparent scotch tape was released officially in 1930 and became the biggest seller of the 3M Company.
Scotch Tape
