Re: [CH] Plant tags
Brent Thompson (brent@hplbct.hpl.hp.com)
Mon, 18 Aug 2003 11:54:01 -0700
> Are there any permanent tags or markers that are truly permanent?
I also find 'permanent' black marker pen often fades to invisibility in
less than one year, though it depends on conditions since sometimes they
can still be read even 3 or 4 years later (conditions which may involve
being not in contact with soil and also mostly protected from light).
Thin aluminum markers are commercially available (usually about 1" x 3",
usually packets of 25 or maybe 50) which emboss a bit when written upon
with pencil or ballpoint pen -- the pencil/pen marks usually fade off (of
course pencil carbon actually wears off, not fades) within a year or two,
but the embossing doesn't change.
Dymo also makes a labeller which takes, among other things, aluminum label
tape (also Dymo brand), that easily makes clearly and beautifully legible
embossed one-line labels of unlimited length. Dymo also sells stainless
steel label tape for that labeller, but stainless steel is so much stronger
than aluminum that it is very difficult to get that puny manually-operated
labeller to emboss clearly, or even legibly at all, using stainless steel
tape.
On the other hand, unlike stainless steel labels which really are
permanent, aluminum is a pretty reactive metal which does oxidize in the
natural outdoor environment, so within five years or so aluminum labels are
noticably degraded (at least the hand-written ones are; I don't have any
aluminum Dymo labels that old to know about them) -- though it certainly
takes way, way more than 10 years to become illegible, unless I suppose if
you had hardly embossed at all in the first place.
--- Brent