Gaffer & Duct

Gaffer (pronounced gaf-er)

(1) The chief electrician on the set of a movie or television show.

(2) In informal use, a boss, supervisor, or manager.

(3) In informal use, an old man, especially one living in the country (often used affectionately or patronizingly).

(4) A foreman or overseer in charge of a group of physical laborers; the coach or manager of a sports team.

(5) In glassmaking, a master glassblower responsible for shaping glassware.

(6) Slang for boy or youth (unique to Ireland); used in maritime regions to refer to the baby of the house.

(7) A type of tape used usually as a safety device to tape-down cables to reduce the risk of tripping hazards (technically gaffer’s tape).

(8) A boat's crew member whose duty is to gaff (a tool consisting of a large metal hook with a handle or pole, especially the one used to pull large fish aboard a boat) a (large) fish once the angler has reeled it in.

(9) In slang, as “to gaff”, “gaffered” or ”to gaffer”, a description of some temporary or roughly improvised repair using gaffer tape or some other quick and dirty method; “to make a gaff” as a description of a mistake is a variation of this.

1565–1575: Thought likely to be a contraction of godfather, but with the vowels influenced by grandfather.  The use to describe “an elderly rustic" was apparently based on continental analogies (compare gammer and the related French compère and German Gevatter).  It seems originally to have been a term of respect, also applied familiarly; from "old man" and was by 1841 extended to foremen and supervisors generally.  In UK police forces, it’s common slang to describe the officer in charge of a particular section or squad and in Association Football (soccer), the head coach or manager.  In the early twentieth century, it was carried over to the electrician or technician in charge of lighting on a film set because the natural lighting on early film sets was adjusted by opening and closing flaps in the tent, these cloths called gaff cloths or gaff flaps.  Because the technician used a long pole with a hook known as a “gaff hook”, he came to be known as a “the gaff hooker” and, as English does when users find there are too many syllables, this was truncated to “the gaffer”.  The tape later used for electrical cables was almost exclusively in the gaffers' toolboxes and thus became “gaffer’s tape”.  Now it’s known almost always as “gaffer tape”.  Gaffer is a noun; the noun plural is gaffers.

Ad-hoc wrap: 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais two door coupe, "duct tape" version.

Duct (pronounced duhkt)

(1) Any tube, canal, pipe, or conduit by which a fluid, air, or other substance is conducted or conveyed.

(2) In anatomy and zoology, a tube, canal, or vessel conveying a body fluid, especially a glandular secretion or excretion.

(3) In botany, a cavity or vessel formed by elongated cells or by many cells.

(4) In the infrastructure of electricity, a single enclosed runway for conductors or cables.

(5) In a printing press, the reservoir for ink.

(6) Guidance; direction; quotation (obsolete).

1640-1650: From the Latin ductus (conveyance of water; a leading, a conduit pipe), noun use of the past participle of ducere (to lead) from dūcō (I lead, draw), from the primitive Indo-European root deuk (to lead).  Use has endured in the Medieval Latin aqueduct and the high rank of aristocracy, duke, drawn from the past participle of ducere (to lead); the construct was duc (variant stem of dūcere (to lead)) + tus (suffix of verbal action).  The meaning in an anatomical sense (vessel of an animal body by which blood, lymph etc, are conveyed) was first noted in the 1660s while that of a "conduit or channel" dates from 1713.  Use in a variety of architectural and engineering contexts to describe "tubes in a structure" developed after the use to describe an "air tube" in 1884.  Duct & ducting are nouns & verbs, ducted is a verb & adjective and ductal is an adjective; the noun plural is ducts.

Duct tape was in 1894 originally sold under the name duck tape, long, non-adhesive strips of plain cotton duck cloth used in various mechanical processes.  The name was transferred to a plastic-coated adhesive tape used by U.S. soldiers in World War II, probably because of its waterproof qualities (ie the sense of "water off a duck's back").  It continued in civilian use after the war, and the name shifted to duct tape by 1958, perhaps because the most common use was in air ducts, which also accounts for its still standard silver-gray color.

Duct and Gaffer Tape

Duct tape scene: Lindsay Lohan as Tess Conway in Freaky Friday (2003).

Often casually regarded as interchangeable, duct and gaffer tapes are constructed differently because they’re intended for different purposes.  Indeed, using one for the intended application of the other can cause messy or worse results.  They’re similar in that both are hand-tearable, conform well to uneven surfaces and tend to be sold in the same packaging and sizes.  Duct tape is constructed with a polyethylene (PE) cloth backing, a material that makes it waterproof and contains an aggressive, rubber-based glue, allowing it easily to adhere to many of surfaces.   Duct tape has (1) a shiny, reflective backing, (2) is for semi-permanent or permanent applications and (3) tends to leave an adhesive residue when removed.  A specialized variation is a heat-resistant foil (not cloth) duct tape, useful for sealing heating and cooling ducts.  For decades silvery gray, it’s now available in colors and even printed designs.

Duct tape fashion: Lindsay Lohan in duct tape cocktail dress.  Tape is 3M Utility Duct Tape 2929 (Silver) and the shoes are Jimmy Choo Patent Leather Sandals.

Gaffer tape is made with a coated cloth backing and a synthetic, rubber-based glue.  Because it doesn’t have the PE backing, gaffer tape is not waterproof but the barrier properties in the backing make it moisture resistant in most cases.  This means it shouldn’t be used for waterproofing but is suitable for temporary use in high-humidity and moist environments. The adhesive on gaffer tape is less aggressive than duct tape, rendering it more easily removed when temporary need is over.  Because of its origins in the theatre, gaffer tape traditionally had a matte white or black backing to reduce the reflection of light but is now available in colored gloss finishes.  It's important gaffer tape be (relatively) easy to remove because in most cases its use intrinsically is temporary, typically to render cables run here and there safe, ensuring they['re not a trip hazard.  Unfortunately, because the adhesive used needs still to be strong enough to stick to surfaces as long as is required, a residue can be left on some surfaces, notably carpets and this is more apparent on some colors.  Many techs have been shouted at by those upset at what's been done to their carpets.

Piet Mondrian’s 1941 New York City 1 as it (presumably correctly) sat in the artist's studio in 1944 (left) and as it has since 1945 been exhibited (upside-down) in New York and Düsseldorf (right).  Spot the difference. 

The term “duct tape fashion” seems to have become a generic, possibly because of the dark association of the stuff with kidnappings and abductions but many of the products so described actually use different types of tape, such as the New York City series of abstract works created in the 1940s with multi-colored paper tape by the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian’s (1872-1944).  The critics responded well to the works although one version, first exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in 1945, has since 1980 hung upside down in the Düsseldorf Museum as part of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen’s collection.  The revelation critics and curators for 80 years discussed and interpreted Mondrian’s meaning despite it being upside down was greeted with glee by those sceptical of modern art but the piece was unsigned, sometimes an indication the artist deemed it unfinished but he left no notes.

On the catwalk: The Black Tape Project at Miami Swim Week, July 2023.

Predictably, the “duct tape bikini” was, in terms of publicity generated, the highlight of Miami Swim Week in July 2023 but for some it was a surprise to see the return of the (trademarked) Black Tape Project because in New York, not six months earlier, Joel Alvarez (creator of the project), announced the brand had staged its “final show”.  Stories duly were written but at Swim Week it transpired the “brand” being discontinued was “Joel Alvarez” and that having “…buried Joel Alvarez on that stage in front of the world”, henceforth he’d be known as “Drakhan Blackhart” and nobody denied that was a wonderful name.  On Instagram (@thekingoftape), Mr Blackhart informed the world he was the “…creator of the Black Tape Project™.  I am the world's only body tape expert, founder and pioneer of the Body Tape Art Genre.  Because of my concepts, I've been able to travel to over 42 countries and counting.”

Nice work if you can get it: An artist dedicated to his craft, Mr Blackhart “hand-applies” the black tape and studs.

Less became more during Mr Blackhart’s half-year hiatus from tape shows because what showed up on the Miami catwalk was even skimpier than what had been seen before; always minimalist, the results were now tending to the minuscule so as well as creating much interest, production costs were lowered because less tape was now required.  Of course, reducing the volume of tape brings artistic challenges because there’s less scope to introduce differences in the designs but it’s not for no reason the imaginative Mr Blackhart describes himself as the “King of Tape”: While conceptually all the installations (that does seem the right word) on the models were by definition “variations on a theme of black tape”, there was enough variety in the placement to keep the audience’s attention.  What the approach does mean is that the point must soon be reached where the possibilities have been exhausted so it may not be long before Black Tape Project models appear adorned with tapes of different colors and that could create a whole new language although there seems not reason why colors can't appear under the "Black Tape" brand.

The language of catwalk tape: From the Black Tape Project (left) and Miami Art Body Tape (right), Miami Swim Week, 2023.

The “duct tape fashion” business is also becoming crowded, Miami Art Body Tape presenting its debut show at a Miami Swim Week event in June.  While he discussed the aesthetic, brand founder Andrei Stamate also revealed interesting technical aspects about the use of the technique, explaining the tape is more difficult to apply than it is to remove and the peeling off “…doesn’t hurt as much as you’d think”; it’s assumed he was speaking from the models’ point of view.  The “body tape” used is of course different in construction and adhesive quality from industrial types such as gaffer or duct-tape but nor was it quite the same as medical grade tape or the famous “Hollywood tape”, the latter better known by the colloquial term “tit tape”.  Body tape “…sticks very well but if the models sweat it could come off” Mr Stamate revealed and has a better grip than the metallic types which he described as “sensitive”.