August 26

5 comments

Gorilla Tape for Tube Counts

By Mike Spack

August 26, 2008

GorillaGorilla-tape
We have tried every imaginable way to keep our tube counter hoses from bouncing on the road.  We had settled on wrapping nylon webbing around the tubes and nailing the webbing into the road.  This has worked very well for us over the last few years.  For a while we used duct tape (Ace Hardware brand worked best) to tape the tubes onto the road.  Unfortunately, the duct tape wore out fast and usually came unstuck in a day or two.  It works ok in residential areas with low speeds and low volumes.  We aren't fans of mastic and other things the industry uses.

Ron in our office picked up a roll of Gorilla Tape at Home Depot a few weeks ago and used it to tape down a few tubes as a test.  This stuff is amazing and we highly recommend it.  We are on the sixth day of a seven day count at 9 locations and the tape looks like it is brand new (I hope I didn't just jinx us).  Ditto for a bunch of 48 hour counts we did two weeks ago on high speed/high volume highways.  We don't think it will work well on cold roads during the winter, but for the summer months we are sold on Gorilla Tape!

  • can you provide the names of any american or canadian manufature’s of
    nylon stockings, that are of the vintage quality, like original hanes
    nylons, and wholesale supplier’s that have sold them as house brands
    to the premium department stores, for stores like marshalfields, saks
    fifth ave., and other;s etc. what name brands are available.

  • Hi Mike,
    We use this tape for our tubes. However, they do not last long as they always tear even after a few days. Could you send me some pics, so that I can check whether I am fixing the tape correctly?
    Thanks

  • Yury,
    Sorry about the delay. Scroll down the page a little bit here – http://www.countingcars.com/product_p/4000.htm
    – and you’ll see a demo video of how we set up our counters. The section where we show what we do for tape is about 3 minutes/30 seconds in.
    How long the tape lasts is definitely a function of temperature and level of traffic. We found it helps to kind of wrap the tape around the tube, otherwise the tape breaks if you’re pulling it tight across the tube. We’ve also doubled up the tape on real high volume roads.
    Mike

  • During winter months could you wrap it around the tube and nail with pk nail? (Same way you install the nylon webbing.)

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    Mike Spack

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