Tube marking with tape

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

ActingLikeAKid

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2015
Messages
1,134
Reaction score
16
I may have posted this already, and this may be an "Oh, yeah, we all know that thing" but if I want to quickly mark a circle on a tube that's close to perfectly perpendicular to the tube (e.g. for precise alignment of centering rings)

- Mark the spot on the tube
-Get some high-quality masking tape (frogtape, 3m blue, etc - something you can repeatedly pick up and put down without it losing stickiness)
-Tear off a bit more than one circumference
-Put the middle of the tape at the spot, trying to make the tape perpendicular to the tube.
-Lay down half of the tape.
-Carefully wrap the rest of the tape. If the tape wraps perfectly over itself, great, you're done. If it doesn't, pull most of it off, adjust the end of the tape slightly up or down, and rewrap until the tape aligns perfectly with itself.
-Mark with pen along the edge of the tape.
 
Wrap a piece of paper around tube when the edges align, bingo perfectly perpendicular with tube. If you want use tape against edge of paper to mark the tube after paper is removed.
Greg
 
Wrap a piece of paper around tube when the edges align, bingo perfectly perpendicular with tube. If you want use tape against edge of paper to mark the tube after paper is removed.
Greg

This. Works perfectly every time.
 
Back in my LPR days I built a simple jig for marking rings on tubes. Two long pieces of wood glued together to make a 90 degree V shaped channel and glue a block at one end. Set the tube in it with one end against the end block. Hold a pencil against the tube while you spin it in the channel and you mark a perfect ring around the tube.
 
Paper trick for me too. and if you use thick enough paper, wrapped around the tube 2 or 3 times, and held in place (together) with a piece of tape, you have thick enough edge to run an X-Acto against to make a tube cut. (remember to make multiple passes; don't' try to cut it in one go!)

Masking tape flexes & bends..
 
The sheet of paper is my go to method as well.

I do own one of those yellow plastic devices as well and have used it many times in the past but not very often anymore.
 
Back
Top