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

My father-in-law had his drywall professionally finished on his high arched ceilings. And I would recommend the same for anybody else - leave the high ceilings to the pros! The hired crew used ordinary paper tape to finish this ceiling and the corner at the peak was not 100% straight. The result was a joint that noticeably swerved back and forth. Fortunately, most (normal) people don’t focus their attention at the peak of the ceiling so in reality the crooked joint is not that noticeable.

I asked my contractor friend how he finished peaks of cathedral ceilings or any other inside corners of angle greater than 90 degrees. He told me about a product called Straitflex. Strait Flex comes in a roll and is a stiff fiber product with a creasing area in its center. So it makes a perfect crease, and because it comes in a roll, it will tape an entire ceiling with a nice straight joint. So I tried some of this myself. You can see my complete trial at Taping Wide Angle Drywall Corners. This product worked really well! A few precautions to take are to pre-fill any gaps at the corner first, make sure to place plenty of mud at the corner, and don’t expect this tape to conform to the wall like paper - it is fairly stiff and if you imbed it too tightly, it will “bounce” back and create a gap. Still, I would highly recommend this product, or something similar for arched ceiling peaks or other wide inside angles.