Painters Tape / Masking Tape Tear helper

I remixed the original to fix a few issues I found when using it with my masking/painters tape.

Problems

1. The U shape that slid on from the side
   • This design of the original made the model inherently roll thickness specific so as you used the roll and it got shorter the U would end up too big to be useful or would be too small when you had a thick new roll of tape. 
     • You can see in the pictures that this improved design works well on rolls that are almost empty as well as thick new rolls.
2. The use of teeth
   • The use of teeth, while it made sense for plastic/cellophane tapes, made it un-usable for paper/masking tapes as those little V shapes left in the tape after a tear made the next piece hard to start and more prone to tear vertically down the roll of tape.

My Solutions

1. My design takes a different approach to only couple the model to the width of the tape roll it should be used on. This is better as it doesn't change over the lifespan of the tape roll and there are several common widths which we can design to support.
2. I used a simple tapered edge instead of teeth to facilitate a clean straight line tear which is easy to do in masking/paper tapes and makes the next piece easy to start every time and less likely to tear vertically down the roll (which we all know is rage inducing).

General

Although my design no longer resembles the original since it was the inspiration for me to design my own I've linked it here as a remix.

I printed and tested the 24mm and 48mm Scotch Blue sizes (as those are the tape sizes I had on hand) and then made the other sizes based on standard Scotch Blue sizes listed on their site. 

If you print one upload a make and let me know how it worked for you!  Also feel free to let me know if you have a tape roll that doesn't closely match any of my sizes.

Printing Info

• I printed mine in PLA and they have worked great and held up just fine but any material should be fine. 
• The layer height being smaller will give the tapered edge better performance so .15 or .20 layers or similar is recommended
• No supports needed. Print as oriented in the file.

Assembly & Usage

• Tear Helper just gets placed on the face of the tape roll with the tapered edge facing the end of the tape.
• A rubber band is hooked from one side of the tear helper to the other to hold it on the roll.
  • The rubber band can be twisted a couple of times to help tension it if its a little too loose or you can use a smaller one
• Slide the Tear Helper down the roll to keep it out of the way as you pull a new piece of tape from the roll and then when you're ready to tear just place your thumb firmly in the middle of the Tear Helper and tear the tape from one side to the other which will give you a clean straight tear.
• Depending on how tacky & tight your rubber band is it sometimes drags on the roll as you slide the Tape Tear Helper around the roll. 
  •  To resolve this you can use a scrap of drinking straw to create a sleeve for the rubber band to help it glide over the inner section of the tape roll
    • On the wider rolls the straw can get long enough that its hard to thread the rubber band through the straw. In these cases I cut the straw vertically on one side so that I can slip the rubber band into it more easily. 
  • Alternatively you could print a simple lipped piece of plastic to act as a similar solution but the straw is faster/simpler and up-cycles something that would otherwise be trash

Removed the teeth and changed the model to be width specific instead of fixed height.