Overheard someone at the supply house say something that got me thinking

I was picking up some 54 inch board at the supplier yesterday and this older guy was telling the counter kid that his crew switched over to all mesh tape for inside corners and stopped using paper. Said they cut their corner repair callbacks by half in 6 months. That got me wondering if I'm stuck in my ways. I've been using paper tape for 12 years and never had a big issue but maybe I'm missing something. Anyone else made that switch and seen a real difference?

2 comments

2 Comments

masonm8515h ago

Oh man, here we go again with the tape wars. Next thing you know someone's gonna tell me they switched to all screws and never use nails anymore and I'll be the old guy shaking his fist at clouds. Look, paper tape has been fine for me for over a decade too but I did try mesh on a few jobs last year and honestly the only difference I noticed was that mesh is way harder to clean up when you mess up a corner. Paper you can just scrape off. Mesh turns into a fuzzy nightmare. Sounds like that old timer either got lucky or his crew was just bad at paper tape to begin with.

irisg5715h ago

Ha, the fuzzy nightmare thing is so true. I tried mesh once on a ceiling patch and ended up with this weird, hairy texture that no amount of mud could fix. Ended up just cutting it all out and starting over with paper.