Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

For fear of being placed on some kind of secret government watch list as a DUCT TAPE hoarder, I won’t admit how much Duct Tape I’ve purchased over the past few years. I will say that I use DUCT TAPE more times a day than I eat. I am constantly using duct tape as extra hands to temporarily hold my project pieces in place for the initial gluing, nailing, stapling, screwing ... or more duct taping. The easy-to-tear and cheaper 5-mil tape is a blessing for this purpose. Reviews on duct tape are all over the place. So is duct tape. I was specifically interested in the adhesiveness and tensile strength of the 3 leading brands of black duct tape. I needed hard evidence, something tangible I could STICK with. The first thing I did was look at the thickness and cost based on prices effective 3/3/15. Scotch TOUGH Heavy Duty All Weather. 26.31 cents per yard and the mil thickness is not listed and might be explained later in my review. Intertape Polymer Group IG2PK-A Grip Black Heavy Duty. 25.36 cents per yard and 17-mil thick. Gorilla Tape. 25.66 cents per yard and 17-mil thick. The rubber adhesiveness when tested on a variety of surfaces did not reveal a discernible difference between the 3 brands. It grabs and sticks. As one comment said, “It’s ALIVE!” The Scotch tape is crinkled or wavy on the roll and if cut cleanly, the edge is hard to locate. I had to use a shop magnifying light. For years, at the end of the fireplace season, I have placed a heavy tarp over the top of a brick chimney and secured it with black duct tape. Every brand I’ve tried except Gorilla Tape has shredded and loosened before the following season. I’ve had Gorilla Tape holding a heavy tarp on a brick chimney for 2 years and it is still holding firm and not raveling. The tensile strength test really surprised me. I took several samples of each brand and folded the tape, adhesive side in, creating double-thickness strips 1/2-inch wide. I placed one end in a bench vice with padded jaws so the metal would not break the tape. I placed the other end in the cushioned jaws of a Vice-Grip. (A piece of bicycle inner tube works great for this purpose.) A new Rapala digital fishing scale hooked to the Vice-Grip would reveal at what weight the strip of tape would break. I ran 5 tests on each brand of tape and the results were consistent and conclusive. The Scotch TOUGH Heavy Duty Tape broke at a mere 5 pounds. I thought I was doing something wrong. It is WEAK tape. The Intertape Polymer Tape broke at 14 pounds. Not bad. I can live with that. The Gorilla Tape broke at a whopping 28 pounds. WHOA! Try this test yourself if you have any doubts. If you don’t have a fishing scale, you can tie a bucket (known weight) to a rail with a strand of black duct tape and place items of known weight into the bucket until the tape breaks. An 800-pound Gorilla can sit anywhere he wants to in my house.