One of the first things I read even before receiving my Printrbot was that one of the best methods of printing is on Blue Painters Tape, seems simple though but there’s different sizes, types and brands and out of a bunch I bought I ended up using one because I thought it was the best out of the three, but I wanted to revisit that decision and try out a print in each on and compare outcomes to see if the one I was using was really the best or did I just have other factors come in that pushed me in that direction.

So to start out I got 4 of the blue takes I currently have, all different models and widths to compare.

I had one 4 inch roll of 3M 2080 basic Blue painters tape, at the time of purchase that was the largest roll available to find in person at local hardware stores ( I.e. Lowes, Home Depot, etc.)

I also has one 2in roll of the more advanced ( or so they say so) 3M 2083, this is thinner, smoother and whatever coating it has on it feels thicker and waxier.

I had a 1in roll of 3M 2093 besides the color difference this roll feels and looks identical to the 2083 roll, thickness is similar, texture and coating seems the same but its supposed to be better

I also had a roll of generic Blue painters tape from the Dollar Tree, this felt more plastic-y than the standard 2080 3M, the texture was slightly smoother, color darker and adhesion seemed way less, in fact I didn’t fully trust it to stick to the surface alone so I reinforced the ends with the 3M tape. In fact that when we painted my daughters nursery this tape didn’t even stick to the walls longer than a few hours before peeling off, BUT for the sake of testing purposes I might as well give it a chance since the price is so much cheaper over brand name tapes.

I had a few days in between starting to write this, some unforeseen circumstances has pushed the test date back, but in the good side is that it gave me time to run down to the hardware store and pickup more tapes! Here’s a list of what I picked up:
– 1.41″ Scotch (3M) Masking Tape #2060 for Concrete, Brick and Grout, it has a Very high Adhesion, green coloring and a 3 Day removal timeframe.
– 1.88″ HDX (Home Depot Brand?) Purple Multi-Surface Painters tape, claims Medium Adhesion with 14-day removal (this one is exciting since at $5.93, it’s $4.04 cheaper than comparable sized Scotch Blue Painters Tape.
-FrogTape.

This post is unfinished, comeback later to see updates, sorry.