Question: Does acetone disolve backup tape?

Answer: Not very quickly.

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:4a0d7721$1@news.povray.org...
> Question: Does acetone disolve backup tape?
>
> Answer: Not very quickly.

   No, the answer is 'Yes'.  :oP

     ~Steve~

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>> Question: Does acetone disolve backup tape?
>>
>> Answer: Not very quickly.
> 
>    No, the answer is 'Yes'.  :oP

Question: Which one of us is currently soaking a backup tape in acetone? 
Which one of us, therefore, has the experimental data to backup their 
position?

(Ya see what I did there?)

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:4a0d7d1e@news.povray.org...
>>> Question: Does acetone disolve backup tape?
>>>
>>> Answer: Not very quickly.
>>
>>    No, the answer is 'Yes'.  :oP
>
> Question: Which one of us is currently soaking a backup tape in acetone? 
> Which one of us, therefore, has the experimental data to backup their 
> position?
>
> (Ya see what I did there?)

   Erm, no, but while you're doing this experiment, tell me what the backup 
tape is made of. Would you say it's the same material as an old 45 or LP 
record?

   What happens if you lift the backup tape out of the acetone? Is the 
material floppy?

        ~Steve~

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>>>> Question: Does acetone disolve backup tape?
>>>>
>>>> Answer: Not very quickly.
>>>    No, the answer is 'Yes'.  :oP
>> Question: Which one of us is currently soaking a backup tape in acetone? 
>> Which one of us, therefore, has the experimental data to backup their 
>> position?
> 
>    Erm, no, but while you're doing this experiment, tell me what the backup 
> tape is made of. Would you say it's the same material as an old 45 or LP 
> record?

No idea what's it's made of. Some sort of extremely thin yet absurdly 
strong plastic, but beyond that I couldn't say.

>    What happens if you lift the backup tape out of the acetone? Is the 
> material floppy?

The spool is developing a kind of "cracked earth" pattern on its 
surface, and there's some ferric oxide floating in the liquid now. But 
beyond that, the spool and tape both seem as rock-solid as ever.

Perhaps I need to actually unwind the tape from the spool. That'll take 
a seriously long time though; IIRC, there's about 8 km of tape in there! o_O

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:4a0d7fa4$1@news.povray.org...

>>>>> Question: Does acetone disolve backup tape?

> No idea what's it's made of. Some sort of extremely thin yet absurdly 
> strong plastic, but beyond that I couldn't say.

      See below.

>
>>    What happens if you lift the backup tape out of the acetone? Is the 
>> material floppy?
>
> The spool is developing a kind of "cracked earth" pattern on its surface, 
> and there's some ferric oxide floating in the liquid now. But beyond that, 
> the spool and tape both seem as rock-solid as ever.

      Could you lift that ferric oxide out with a magnet?

>
> Perhaps I need to actually unwind the tape from the spool. That'll take a 
> seriously long time though; IIRC, there's about 8 km of tape in there! o_O

     Ah, I see. I've never seen one of these tapes so thought it was either 
like a camera film or something more solid like a plastic disc. I would 
imagine that if you unravel it, it would dissolve far quicker.

      ~Steve~

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> Question: Does acetone disolve backup tape?
> >>
> >> Answer: Not very quickly.
> > 
> >    No, the answer is 'Yes'.  :oP

> Question: Which one of us is currently soaking a backup tape in acetone? 
> Which one of us, therefore, has the experimental data to backup their 
> position?

  You didn't ask how long it takes for it to dissolve. You only asked if
it dissolves.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:

>   You didn't ask how long it takes for it to dissolve. You only asked if
> it dissolves.

Yes, my mistake.

I implicitly meant "does it disolve faster than the polar icecaps?"

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:4a0d8cd5$1@news.povray.org...
> Warp wrote:
>
>>   You didn't ask how long it takes for it to dissolve. You only asked if
>> it dissolves.
>
> Yes, my mistake.
>
> I implicitly meant "does it disolve faster than the polar icecaps?"

     I doubt it... ;)

    ~Steve~

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St. wrote:

>    Erm, no, but while you're doing this experiment, tell me what the backup 
> tape is made of.

Wikipedia suggests it might be Mylar (i.e., polyethylene terephthalate). 
I still don't know how to make it disolve though. So far we've tried:

- Acetone
- Hexane
- Butyle acetate

We don't have any other really cheap solvents in our lab...

Oh well, I guess I could try using mineral acid to disolve the iron 
coating. :-S

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