I was at my local Walmart today and couldn’t find real duct tape; found cheap imitation duck tape, which I accidently bought last summer, and which isn’t worth poop. They did have gorilla tape. What say the experts?
Find decent duct tape or go with the gorilla.
Thanks!
Leigh
Gorilla vs Duct Tape
I’m no expert, but I think Gorilla is stronger than Duct and it does not slowly slip as Duct does.
However, Gorilla is more expensive and is harder to remove.
Ragnar
Duct tape, duct tape and more
duct tape.
I keep a roll in my kayak tool box which stays in my vehicle.
I keep a roll in one of the door pockets of both of my vehicles, and I keep a piece of it wrapped around a spare paddle, (just in case).
I keep several rolls in the shop, and “the bride” keeps several rolls around the house.
there is a race we do called the Lumber River Challenge where all finishers get to pick a goodie package. the faster you finish, the more choices of goodie packs you have.
Each year we pick the one that has a roll of duct tape amongst the goodies. If it was gorilla tape, I woiuld pass right by it.
Cheers,
Jackl
gorilla is great. NM
For dry bag patch…
Duck tape works. Gorilla tape too stiff. Gorilla tape curled up at the edges and eventually flaked off. Duck tape still going strong. I know I should put a patch of vinyl over the hole. I even saved one dry bag that is unpatchable due to a split at the fold for patch material. But duck tape is so easy and works so well, there’s no inspiration to patch.
Gorilla tape certainly seems stronger.
~~Chip
Gorilla tape
Had a piece covering a small crack on the bottom of my whitewater canoe for almost a year - tough stuff.
duct tape
For Duct Tape
Get Nashua 357. Best Duct tape around. So sticky that it’s hard to peel it off the roll. Great stuff if you need tough duct tape.
How about Hippo tape.
It’s new to me but I understand it can even work underwater. I have some on the way. Has anyone else tried it?
Duct tape can also be “welded” with
a hot iron to make multi-layered inside patches of poly boats. The patches are surprisingly durable. A friend I often see on the river had cracked his old Perception Dancer, and I told him about the layered, hot-iron, duct tape fix. He patched the crack once, and has been paddling on the patch for a couple of years.
here’s info on hippo – haven’t tried it
http://www.hippopatch.com/
Not so much duct tape. It looks sort of like a cross between tape and putty. Still needs surface to be dry but then stays put in water. May be good for emergency boat repair.
3M 3939 Duct Tape
I have a roll of this in my boat at all times.
I spent two days running whitewater on the Dead river in Maine this past July. When we put on the first day I realized my well worn royalex canoe had developed a crack under the saddle and was slowly taking on water. I put a tape patch on the wet hull that did not last the first rapid (Spencer Rips).
At lunch I was able to dry the hull and put a few layers of tape over the crack.
Those kept the water from coming through the bottom for the next two days even after I scraped through some shallows. Didn’t do a thing about the water coming over the gunwales though .
Never tried Gorilla tape but my buddy says it wouldn’t stick to the vinyl gunwales on his Old Town Hunter.
Gorilla tape
Patched the cracked end cap on my Nova Craft Prospector, and patched a rip in my tent screen with it this season. So far, so good. Seems pretty strong to me but then, duct tape is “tried and true”.
It looks like the “gutter tape”…
…sold at home centers. It’s a relative of the ice/water membrane material used on roofs, possibly even the same thing.
I saw some military-spec duct tape once
They call it “100-mph duct tape”, and it was used to patch bullet holes in the outer skins of helicopters. That stuff is incredibly sticky. Like someone already said about a particular style of duct tape, it is incredibly hard just to get it off the roll. Once it’s firmly pressed on for your repair, it’s gonna stay.
Gorilla Tape
Normal duct tape, even the high-grade stuff, isn’t waterproof. On our kayak trailers, I’ve found the top layer eventually separates from the fabric underneath, which exposes the glue side, so eventually both layers hang off in long, ugly strips.
When I refurbished the trailers this year, I used Gorilla tape instead to wrap around mini-cell foam padding on the crossbars & uprights. If you put it onto clean & dry surfaces, it will stay till it wears off.
I tried it as keel strips on our plastic livery tandems; it got torn up by rocks & barnacles, but where it didn’t wear, it stuck like the dickens.
I used it and marine epoxy putty to do a field repair on a thermoplastic kayak that got T-boned surfing. It was a hand-sized hole with radiating cracks. It’s been a year & I haven’t had time to fix the boat, but the patch has held firm.
As I said, as long as you put it on clean & dry, it will stick to just about any surface.
Duct Tape…
NASCAR-tested “200 mph tape”. As long as it’s not the cheap stuff. I prefer the “cloth” duct tape, black. It doesn’t flake unless you leave it out in the sun/snow/rain for a year or so.
Gorilla Tape Never Flakes
I heard for survival purposes get some Gorilla tape and wrap a good length around an old pill bottle. I did this prior to taking a tube trip down Jacks Fork River. Well I’m so glad I did because I had to use it. I was using a stick with nubs to propell various areas and got the stick stuck in the rocks when all of a sudden my tube slammed into one of the sticks nubs and poked a pinky size hole in the tube. Air was escaping fast. I grabbed my survival tape and wiped the tube free of moisture around the big hole, pressed down for about 2 mins and the hole was patched for the next 5 miles we had left to go. I did press down around the hole a few times when I heard air escaping, but it sealed right back up with no worries. I’d highly recommend using it.
Gorilla tape is good but UV eats it after a month or 2.