and compounded comb copolymers are non newtonian and exhibit shear thinning characteristics as a result melt viscosity data is supplied from a rheometrics mechanical spectrometer 800 using parallel plates at 10 sec 1 and 100 sec 1 for both acrylic comb polymers and compounds the higher shear rate of 100 sec 1 is regarded to be below the operational shear rates typically encountered in high speed hot melt coating the acrylic comb copolymer compounds prepared in accordance with the present invention are easily coated upon suitable flexible backing materials by conventional coating techniques to produce coated sheet materials the adhesive compounds of the present invention can be applied to the flexible backing material as a solution and the solvent subsequently removed to leave a tacky coating on the backing material however the preferred adhesives can be applied from the melt directly to the backing allowing a single step coating operation flexible backing material may be any material conventionally used as tape backing or any other flexible backing flexible backings which can be used for the present adhesive compositions include paper and thermoplastic films of polymers such as polyethylene polypropylene polyvinyl chloride polyesters i e polyethylene terephthalate cellulose acetate and ethyl cellulose backings may also be prepared of silicon release liner cloth fabric metal metalized polymer films or ceramic sheet.