Took me 3 tries to get drywall tape right before I finally watched a pro do it

I used to think those mesh tape patches were just as good as paper tape for flat joints. After my bedroom closet project in Albany left me with cracks showing through after 2 months I figured I was doing something wrong. My buddy who does remodeling for a living came over and showed me how he embeds paper tape into a thin bed of mud first. He let me run my hand over the finished spot and you literally can't feel the seam at all. The difference was night and day compared to my old method where I just slapped tape over dry mud. Now I only use the mesh stuff for corners and it's been holding strong for over a year now. Has anyone else switched their taping method after seeing it done the right way?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_ben3d ago

Read something similar on a construction forum a while back. Guy said he'd been taping for 20 years and still used paper tape for flat joints because mesh just doesn't have the same holding power over time. Made me rethink my whole approach to drywall.

ryan_clark403d ago

Honestly, that's a solid point but I think the whole debate misses something big. Nobody ever talks about how paper tape actually bonds with the mud on a chemical level, not just a physical grab like mesh does. The paper fibers literally become part of the compound as it dries, so you get a homogenous strip of material across that joint. Mesh is just a net that the mud has to dry around, so over time with building settling you get micro-cracks right along the edge of the tape. Ngl, I've ripped out enough failed mesh jobs from houses built in the 90s to know which one lasts longer in the real world. Paper tape is a pain to embed right but once it's on there, it's basically part of the wall for life.