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A rubber band (in some regions known as a binder, elastic band, lackey band, "laggy band" or gumband) is a short length of rubberRubber

Rubber is an elastic hydrocarbon polymer which occurs as a milky emulsion in the sap of several varieties of plants....
 and latexLaTeX

,written as LaTeX in plain text, is a document preparation system for the...
 formed in the shape of a loop.
Such bands are typically used to hold multiple objects together.
The rubber band was patented in AustraliaAustralia Summary

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland o...
 on March 17, 1845 by Stephen PerryStephen Perry Summary

Stephen Perry was a 19th century British inventor and businessman....
.

ManufacturingThe manufacturing process involves extruding the rubber into a long tubeCylinder (geometry)

In mathematics, a cylinder is a quadric, i.e....
 to provide its general shape, putting the tubes on mandrels and curing the rubber with heat, and then slicing it along the width of the tube into little bands.
While other rubber products may use synthetic rubberSynthetic rubber

Synthetic rubber is any type of artificially made polymer material which acts as an elastomer....
, rubber bands are still primarily manufactured using natural rubber because of its superior elasticity.
Rubber Band Sizes MeasuringA rubber band has three basic dimensionDimension

In common usage, a dimension is a parameter or measurement required to define the characteristics of an object—i.e....
s: LengthLength

Length is the long dimension of any object....
, width, and thicknessThickness

Thickness may refer to:* Thickness in graph theory...
.






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1845   The rubber band is invented in England






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A rubber band (in some regions known as a binder, elastic band, lackey band, "laggy band" or gumband) is a short length of rubberRubber

Rubber is an elastic hydrocarbon polymer which occurs as a milky emulsion in the sap of several varieties of plants....
 and latexLaTeX

,written as LaTeX in plain text, is a document preparation system for the...
 formed in the shape of a loop.
Such bands are typically used to hold multiple objects together.
The rubber band was patented in AustraliaAustralia Summary

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland o...
 on March 17, 1845 by Stephen PerryStephen Perry Summary

Stephen Perry was a 19th century British inventor and businessman....
.

Manufacturing

The manufacturing process involves extruding the rubber into a long tubeCylinder (geometry)

In mathematics, a cylinder is a quadric, i.e....
 to provide its general shape, putting the tubes on mandrels and curing the rubber with heat, and then slicing it along the width of the tube into little bands.
While other rubber products may use synthetic rubberSynthetic rubber

Synthetic rubber is any type of artificially made polymer material which acts as an elastomer....
, rubber bands are still primarily manufactured using natural rubber because of its superior elasticity.

Rubber Band Sizes

Measuring

A rubber band has three basic dimensionDimension

In common usage, a dimension is a parameter or measurement required to define the characteristics of an object—i.e....
s: LengthLength

Length is the long dimension of any object....
, width, and thicknessThickness

Thickness may refer to:* Thickness in graph theory...
. (See picture.)

A rubber band's length is half its circumferenceCircumference

The circumference is the distance around a closed curve....
. Its thickness is the distance from the inner circle to the outer circle.

Lay a rubber band down so that it makes a squareSquare (geometry)

In plane geometry, a square is a polygon with four equal sides, four right angles, and parallel opposite sides....
.
The band's width is the height of that band.
If one imagines a rubber band in manufacture, that is, a long tube of rubber on a mandrel, before it is sliced into rubber bands, the band's width is how far apart the slices are cut.

Rubber Band Size Numbers

A rubber band is given a [quasi-]standard number based on its dimensions.

Generally, rubber bands are numbered from small to large, width first.
Thus, rubber bands numbered 8-19 are all 1/16 inchInch

An inch is the name of a unit of length in a number of different systems, including English units, Imperial units, and Unit...
es wide, with length going from 7/8 inches to 3 1/2 inches.
Rubber band numbers 30-34 are for width of 1/8 inches, going again from shorter to longer.
For even longer bands, the numbering starts over for numbers above 100, again starting at width 1/16 inches.

The origin of these size numbers is not clear and there appears to be some conflict in the "standard" numbers.
For example, one distributor has a size 117 being 1/16 inch wide and a size 127 being 1/8 inch wide.
However, an OfficeMax size 117 is 1/8 inch wide.
A manufacturer has a size 117A (1/16 inch wide) and a 117B (1/8 inch wide).
Another distributor calls them 7AA (1/16 inch wide) and 7A (1/8 inch wide) (but labels them as specialty bands).

Rubber Band Sizes
Size Length (in) Width (in) Thickness (in)
10 1.25 1/16 1/32
12 1.75 1/16 1/32
14 2 1/16 1/32
31 2.5 1/8 1/32
32 3 1/8 1/32
33 3.5 1/8 1/32
61 2 1/4 1/32
62 2.5 1/4 1/32
63 3 1/4 1/32
64 3.5 1/4 1/32
117 7 1/16 1/32

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