Drywall News and New Products

Crack Tape

Strait Flex sent me a bunch of samples to try out. One of the products was call Crack Tape. And I just happened to have a few cracks needing fixing, so I thought I would give it a try. If you read my article on repairing drywall cracks that occur at the corners of windows and doors, you find that I am not too optimistic about any type of retaping holding up. Rather, I advocate removing drywall and putting up new pieces so there is no joint at the corners. But, this Strait Flex product is advertised to have 10 times the strength of regular paper tape. So maybe it would hold up?

I repaired one crack by simply taping over the top and then overcoating and feathering out the repair. Since this tape itself is a bit thicker than paper tape, it raises the surface a bit, which is never a good thing. But, on the other hand, this Strait Flex is a stiff non-paper composite material that is sand-able. So unlike paper tape, if you happen to sand down to the tape it is not as detrimental. My repair came out nice and is shown below.

I repaired another crack by using the drywall crack repair method shown here, but instead of using paper tape, I used the Strait Flex crack repair tape. The repair went well, and I would expect that the repair would hold up better in this high-stress area than regular paper tape. Another feature of this tape, besides being much stronger, is that you place the tape on, imbed it, and then immediately place a coat over the top. This allows a continuous coat to pass through the holes of the tape, giving it that much more strength. And since this tape is fairly stiff, I had no problems with snagging the tape by immediately overcoating. Check back at this site in 5 years or so to see how well it held up

You can order this product or other Straitflex products at the Straitflex website.

Going Over The Top of a Crack

Removing Old Tape First