Hi, I am creating some small pack boxes and need to figure out an efficient way to 'self roll' duct tape. I am thinking 10' roll (but I defer to the pros). I considered rolling it around a pen with wax paper or something on the pen and then sliding it off. Any suggestions? THANKS!

I agree with Izzy, I haave been useing gift cards with verious types of tape rolled on them for quite so time.

Easy solutions are often the best. That sounds reasonable enough to do. THANKS :-)

Same here. I've been using old gift cards and motel key cards. Works like a champ. One more step tho, you may want to wrap it in wax paper when done to protect your gear.

I may be under-complicating this... but what's the problem with folding the end over on itself (sticky to sticky) for abour 3" and then just unroll and fold until you have enough tape? I've done this for years: unrolling isn't much of a problem, although I do have to discard the last fold where sticky-to-sticky started.

Am I missing something? I DO usually use Gaffer's tape, but have used duct tape too.

I've used just about everything from wax paper, to cut off sticks from tootsie-pops, to gift cards.

The tootsie pop sticks made a surprisingly compact package, but were hard to pack. Gift cards or chunks of the paper backing off of stickers work awesome. Bumper sticker backing works real well.

My favorite way to carry duct tape, is to wrap it around a Nalgene bottle. Then you can either use the bottle to carry a "kit" inside it, or to carry water; and your duct tape is always handy there on the outside of the bottle.
I got that idea from one of Cody Lundin's books.

Certainly, there may be times when you can't (or don't prefer to) take along a water bottle... so, use of the "card" or "self-rolled" methods will be perfect for that.
Otherwise, I like the bottle idea; because I always have the tape handy, and never have to worry if I packed the tape, or where I put it.

I wrap my tape around my flashlights. I usually carry 20 ft or so and also several ft of electrical tape as well.

You can just buy small rolls of duct tape and strip out the cardboard center of the roll. Then flatten it out into a flat roll.

David Enoch

I'll second that, you can get a fair length of tape around a nalgene bottle and it makes a good fixing point when you put a few loops of paracord under the tape for carrying the bottles.

I've used credit-cards, medical syringes, pencils, waxed-paper, but one of my favorite ways is using a tongue-depressor:

I roll some around a golf pencil.

It's like playing Tetris. LOL

I wrap about 3ft of tape around Tylenol 'travel' tubes (about the size of a roll of quarters). Some bags have several tubes, each with different items inside and each with tape on the outside.

I currently have mine wrapped around a golf pencil too. I'm planning on wrapping some around a gift card one day and trying that out.

Besides what's in my kits, I carry a "Pocket Duct Tape" (found here) in my pocket at all times. Very handy and easy to carry in pockets and small kits. One could make their own but the commercial, compact packaging seems pretty durable and prevents the edges of the tape from collecting pocket lint and causing other sticky messes in my pocket. These make nice, inexpensive gifts to those who are uninitiated on preparedness because they open the door to further dialog on the topic.

+1 for pocket duct tape. They've already rolled it, and its in a usable size. I don't mind paying a bit instead of rolling my own. ymmv.