duck tape? gaffers/gaffer tape?

[Michael McKernan]

> "friction tape."

Yes! I've been trying to recall the name of that stuff since yesterday.

> It was black, cloth,
> self-adhesive, slightly sticky on the upper surface, dull, coarse and
> easy
> to tear off the roll and to lift off itself or other surfaces. It was
> definitely an electrician's tape.
> A. Murie

Yes, my father (and I) used this, too.  It was probably not at all limited
to electricians.  My earliest memory of it was using it to wrap the handles
of baseball bats (and later, hockey stick handles and blades.  Clearly
known as 'friction tape', and usually found in 3/4" or perhaps 1" widths.
Still available, I think.  Very different in use and qualities from
gaffer/duct/k tape.

Gaffers, BTW, while typically electricians nowadays, were, as I understand
it from my father, originally riggers, the stagehands who worked in the
wings and above the set, dealing with ropes, cables, lights (hence the need
to be electricians, as the theater/movie productions electrified).  But I
have no personal knowledge of how far back the term 'gaffer' goes in this
context.  Gaslight probably, maybe candlelight.  If anyone misunderstood me
to have implied that gaffers were set-builders, that wasn't my intention.
My grandfather was a gaffer in vaudeville theaters.  HIs experience with
rigging and working in high places resulted in him being hired as part of
the crew which re--gilded the Massachusetts State House's golden dome after
World War II--it had been painted over during the war 'to deny enemy
submarines a potential aiming point in Boston' (before all the big
buildings!)  If he'd been on the painting crew, he might have just covered
it over with gaffer's tape, and then simply pulled that off after the war,
waterproof and strong, but 'leaving little or no residue'.

Michael McKernan