Best Camo Tape?

[+bigjim4life]

I have some pill bottles/containers that I'm thinking about re-using as cache containers - however, I'd like to cover them up in camo tape before I hide them.  For those of you with experience hiding these (or experience with camo tape in general), what's the brand/type you use, what's the best type?  I'd prefer something you can order on Amazon (even better with Prime) unless it can be found at a local chain (Home Depot/Lowes) or on a geocaching-specific web store.  Ready, and....go!  (And thanks in advance!)

[+cerberus1]

Gorilla tape.

We don't tape plastics anymore (don't use 'em).  But when we did, it was Gorilla tape.

If you have a lotta corners or odd shapes, Gorilla and TRex  tape are kinda stiff.  For those, we used 3m for its pliability, and it holds as long as most plastic containers need between maintenance.

[+coman123]

In Canada there is a cloth camo hockey tape that works great available at Canadian Tire.

Pill bottles will most likely leak and get wet though

[+cerberus1]

25 minutes ago, bigjim4life said:

I have some pill bottles/containers that I'm thinking about re-using as cache containers - however, I'd like to cover them up in camo tape before I hide them.   For those of you with experience hiding these (or experience with camo tape in general),..

To be clear, we've never hidden a tape-wrapped pill bottle, our least favorite hide to find.  Many around here are now calling these small for some odd reason.

[+kunarion]

33 minutes ago, bigjim4life said:

I have some pill bottles/containers that I'm thinking about re-using as cache containers - however, I'd like to cover them up in camo tape before I hide them.  For those of you with experience hiding these (or experience with camo tape in general), what's the brand/type you use, what's the best type?  I'd prefer something you can order on Amazon (even better with Prime) unless it can be found at a local chain (Home Depot/Lowes) or on a geocaching-specific web store.  Ready, and....go!  (And thanks in advance!)

 

I've used "Gorilla Camo Duct Tape, Mossy Oak" for several of my hides, especially Lock-n-Locks.  I've had a 50ml vial covered with that, and hanging outdoors by "Spiderwire Superbraid", as a test, for 3 years, and there's no fading on the Gorilla Tape, and it still looks like new. (also the Spiderwire held up great).  The Gorilla Tape has a clothlike feel to it, not like ordinary duct tape.  It's also easy to find in hardware stores.

I also have a plastic "removable" tape for hunting equipment, and that turned bright blue in a few months.

[+hzoi]

51 minutes ago, kunarion said:

I also have a plastic "removable" tape for hunting equipment, and that turned bright blue in a few months.

Seen this many times with different camo patterned duct tape.  I guess UV testing was not done well enough.

[+kunarion]

17 minutes ago, hzoi said:

Seen this many times with different camo patterned duct tape.  I guess UV testing was not done well enough.

 

This was a roll of tape that had a peel-off backing.  At about 6 months, people were finding it easily (bright blue shows up pretty well against gray tree bark).  I had to spray-paint it camo again.  The tape's adhesive also becomes kind of slimy, good thing I didn't use it on a gun stock or something important.  I guess you never know until you try it.

It may be related to only particular production runs, and any given tape may be made in various factories, yet look the same at first.  This is like pretty much everything else in Geocaching, where for example, you may have given up on a certain product due to it being inferior, it just plain did not hold up in the wilds, and then you see me highly recommending it in the Forum. 

Edited December 7, 2017 by kunarion

[+cerberus1]

56 minutes ago, kunarion said:

I also have a plastic "removable" tape for hunting equipment, and that turned bright blue in a few months.

I did a product test once on a couple brands (one very popular) meant as a temp "shine-reducing" fix to firearms.  Never left it on, which wasn't its purpose.  Thanks for the heads-up.  

I went to a spandoflage stretchy, thin material (like a wispy ace bandage) instead, neither though good for long time use outdoors. 

[+kunarion]

12 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

I went to a spandoflage stretchy, thin material (like a wispy ace bandage) instead, neither though good for long time use outdoors. 

 

That stuff is good for making a rough covering.  I made a couple of prototypes, sealed and painted.  The tape frays and shreds after a while.  It might work, depending on the effect you're going for.  By itself, it's not well-suited to remain outdoors.

[+cerberus1]

14 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

I did a product test once on a couple brands (one very popular) meant as a temp "shine-reducing" fix to firearms.  Never left it on, which wasn't its purpose.  Thanks for the heads-up.  

I went to a spandoflage stretchy, thin material (like a wispy ace bandage) instead, neither though good for long time use outdoors. 

6 minutes ago, kunarion said:

That stuff is good for making a rough covering.  I made a couple of prototypes, sealed and painted.  The tape frays and shreds after a while.  It might work, depending on the effect you're going for.  By itself, it's not well-suited to remain outdoors.

 

[+kunarion]

1 hour ago, bigjim4life said:

I have some pill bottles/containers that I'm thinking about re-using as cache containers

 

Pill bottles tend to have foam-lined caps, not waterproof.  In fact they seem to pull water inside!  I haven't come up with a situation where I'd use one as a cache container.  I do not want to disappoint any finder the way I've been disappointed by every pill bottle cache ever.

But I have a couple of caches that use 50ml vials, and those vials have a screw-on seal like soda bottles.  I swap out the vial at times.  The cache is designed to allow that, without having to rebuild the whole thing.  It's trivial to swap it out for a fresh, dry container when one has a box of 500 vials.

Edited December 7, 2017 by kunarion

[+NYPaddleCacher]

26 minutes ago, kunarion said:

I had to spray-paint it camo again. 

This, to me, is a better option than camo-tape.   It might require buying a can of olive, brown/tan, and black  and spraying a little of each on the container, but it doesn't have the shine of camo tapes.  When I bought spray paint for camo a few years ago the store had a selection of spray points with all the colors that worked well as camo next to each other.  Spraying the inside of the container with one of the colors well help keep the camo even when the outside gets scratched.  

[+cerberus1]

13 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

This, to me, is a better option than camo-tape.   It might require buying a can of olive, brown/tan, and black  and spraying a little of each on the container, but it doesn't have the shine of camo tapes.  When I bought spray paint for camo a few years ago the store had a selection of spray points with all the colors that worked well as camo next to each other.  Spraying the inside of the container with one of the colors well help keep the camo even when the outside gets scratched.  

Oddly, the only Lock n Lock we ever had become brittle was sprayed with Krylon  (for plastic) paint. 

We have a couple large LNL containers in one hide and left them unpainted because of that (no real reason to paint 'em anyway).

[+kunarion]

5 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

Oddly, the only Lock n Lock we ever had become brittle was sprayed with Krylon  (for plastic) paint.

 

Yes!  I haven't been paining mine lately, because of the same reason(s).  The ones hanging or in view, I've used the very same Gorilla Tape lately, and that works nicely.  Still, I don't tape over the hinges (parts that move) on Lock-n-Locks.

[+bigjim4life]

So then that's a "no" to the pill bottles.  Alright, I'll recycle them when I get home.  Thanks everyone!

[+cerberus1]

12 minutes ago, bigjim4life said:

So then that's a "no" to the pill bottles.  Alright, I'll recycle them when I get home.  Thanks everyone!

We find a lot of them, so the lower D/T must see oneheckofalot too.  Most players who use these (on caches we'll do)  if I'm not first, then up to fifth person finding it, so I don't usually get to see the soaked, moldy mess inside .   

[+fbingha]

The Duck brand camo tape sold at Home Depot is what you want. Don't touch the Scotch brand duct tape, it just plain sucks.

I also use the gorilla glue black duct tape but I can't say it is that much better than the Duck brand for using on caches. I hide a lot of lock & locks with duct tape on them so I have some skin in this game. I always cover the hinges with duct tape because So Cal sun  kills those hinges in 1 year. Duct tape over the hinge, it lasts forever. If you are wanting the tape for actual camo, then I would just paint.

If exposed to sun, use duct tape.

If not exposed to sun, use duct tape or paint with matte paint. I buy rustoleum camo paints at various colors at Wal-Mart. When I use duct tape for a cache that isn't exposed and doesn't really need camo, I still sometimes put the gorilla glue black tape on it just to make it stay dark in case nosy muggles happen to be digging around.

Edited December 7, 2017 by fbingha

[+BCandMsKitty]

Krylon  flat spray paint

That stuff will stick to almost anything

[+justintim1999]

Try spray painting the pill bottle green or brown.  You may want to rough it up first with some sand paper.  Cover it with some thin double sided tape and roll it around in some broken leaves, twigs, bark ect.   After it's covered spray it with some clear adhesive.  You may want to spray it a couple of times.  Just remember to remove the cap before you spray it.   You can cover the container with just about anything that will blend in with it's soundings.   For under $10 you should be able to camo as many pill bottles (or any other container) you'd like.

Some of the pieces of camo do come off from time to time due to handling but overall it works pretty good.

   

[+Mn-treker]

Gorilla tape in camo. Here we nicknamed it the evil ducktape.

Wrap a container in it and hang it 15 feet up. It is very hard to see.

[+Rustynails]

On ‎12‎/‎7‎/‎2017 at 4:45 PM, fbingha said:

The Duck brand camo tape sold at Home Depot is what you want. Don't touch the Scotch brand duct tape, it just plain sucks.

 

I just bought a couple rolls of scotch. Why do you think it sucks?

[+fbingha]

1 hour ago, rustynails. said:

I just bought a couple rolls of scotch. Why do you think it sucks?

The scotch duct tape that I've used is always really thin and just doesn't stick very well.

[+evosteve]

A lot of the ones using camo duct tape in my area hold up pretty well. I think it also has to do with placement.  

[+Mudfrog]

On 12/10/2017 at 3:43 PM, rustynails. said:

I just bought a couple rolls of scotch. Why do you think it sucks?

 

On 12/10/2017 at 4:44 PM, fbingha said:

The scotch duct tape that I've used is always really thin and just doesn't stick very well.

In our experience, the Scotch is fairly stout and it sticks pretty good. The thing it sucks at is keeping its color. On our caches, every one with this tape has ended up turning blueish green in color. The pattern is still there but that blue makes em much easier to spot. Duck brand tape works better in the long run but for some reason, the camouflaged version is harder to find around here.

On the pill bottles, they work okay if they are out of the weather. They almost always end up with wet slimy logsheets if they aren't placed in a spot that stays dry.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Mudfrog

[+BCandMsKitty]

The best use I've found for pill bottles is to hold the log inside a larger cache container.

Always good to have a second barrier for moisture.

[sp1tf1re]

On 3/25/2018 at 0:22 PM, BCandMsKitty said:

The best use I've found for pill bottles is to hold the log inside a larger cache container.

Always good to have a second barrier for moisture.

That's not a bad idea for a small container, to have that second barrier.

[+pscwmoms]

I use preforms or un-exploded soda bottles for small caches. I also place them inside bigger cache to hold the log.  Last time I made a big maintenance loop trip I found someone had taken my preform and left pill bottles in there places?  So I put down new one and new logs.

I like the Gorilla tape and Duck Duct tape, color depends on the hide our rock are light tan.  The big advantage beside help hide the container it keeps the condensation down on the inside.  Tape helps me made them a hanger too.

[+Isonzo Karst]

On 4/5/2018 at 10:40 PM, pscwmoms said:

someon had taken my preform and left pill bottles

Lordy.  

I once had a cacher take my ammo can  and leave a pretzel jar.  I didn't realize this for some time, so I can't say who did it. It's not the kind of thing someone puts in their log.  The person who swapped your superior containers for his free inferior understood that s/he was stealing, so wasn't telling you ;-)

Tape, I've used it on the lids of lock and locks, carefully taping the hinge areas,  more for UV protection than camo. This works okay. I'm not hiding L&Ls now, they degrade too fast in the Humidity State (seal acquires a black film that wicks water).

 

 

[+Korichnovui]

Slightly off topic, but regarding uses for pill bottles:

I found a fun cache which was a long PVC tube. Inside was a series of pill bottles, and the log was in one of them. The others contained scraps of paper that said “this one isn’t the log, keep looking!”

[+noncentric]

I don't remember where I got it from, but I've used camo tape that has a fabric texture and it seems to have held up well. I like it because its surface isn't shiny and it seems to fade slower, but that could also be because where I've placed them doesn't get much sun exposure.

 

23 hours ago, Korichnovui said:

I found a fun cache which was a long PVC tube. Inside was a series of pill bottles, and the log was in one of them. The others contained scraps of paper that said “this one isn’t the log, keep looking!”

Yes - there are other variations, like filling a bucket with plastic eggs, plastic balls, plastic film canisters. There would be dozens in a larger container and cachers have to find the one with the logsheet to sign in.