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Handy Dandy Shrink Tube Assortment

This assortment of high quality shrink tube is made up of:

10 feet 1/8" 
color - clear

2 feet 7/32"
color - yellow/green

3 feet 9/16" 
color - yellow

4 feet 5/8" 
color - yellow or blue, our choice

All tubing will shrink to 1/2 of its original diameter. 
Tubes are shown as true ID, not measured flat.


19 feet of tubing for $5.00


What makes heat shrink tubing shrink, you ask?

It's really more of a chemistry question than a physics question, because it has to do with the chemical reaction that the plastic goes through when exposed to a heat source. 

Heat shrink tubing is made up of plastic, generally PVC - polyvinyl chloride, that is only partially polymerized. Polymerization is a chemical reaction which forms polymers by sticking a group of monomers together. A monomer is a group of atoms that are bonded together. Heat is what's necessary to complete the chemical reaction. You can think of it as if the plastic is only part-way formed before exposed to the heat. 

As the separate monomers in the plastic are polymerized, they draw closer together, making the plastic denser, which causes the tube to shrink. But because the polymerization reaction is one-way, the tube won't expand again once it cools down. 

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Polymer - noun -   Any of numerous natural and synthetic compounds of usually high molecular weight consisting of up to millions of repeated linked units, each a relatively light and simple molecule.

[Greek polu-)mers, consisting of many parts Ý: polu-, poly- + meros, part]
 

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