 Hello and welcome to Vancouver Carpenter. Today we have the great debate in drywall. Mesh versus paper. However, to any season veteran in drywall is not even a debate. Paper wins in virtually every category, except for ease of application in small patches. That is the only thing that Mesh tape wins for. First let's take a look at the qualities of each tape. So we've got Mesh tape here, which is strong in that way. So in pulling, you can't really tear it. I've got to use a knife to be able to do this, but that doesn't mean that it's strong. So take a quick look at it this way. It can rack this way and this way. So it has no sort of sheer strength. Now let's take a look at paper tape. So obviously it's paper. I can just tear it, but it's not capable of twisting and bending. It's got good, torsional sheer strength kind of making up words, but I hope you get the idea. It can't move and it's still strong like this too. So it's perfectly adequate in that way. But the number one most important reason why paper is better than Mesh tape is what happens when there is a small amount of movement. When a wall gets a minute amount of movement, it's possible for the mud in between the two boards to crack a tiny bit. When you've got paper covering that joint, you can't see that tiny hairline crack under the tape. Mesh on the other hand, there's nothing stopping you from seeing that hairline crack. So paper wins over Mesh for long-term durability. However, if you have substantial structural movement, you are going to see a crack with paper as well. That's a different problem entirely. The reason people love Mesh tape is because it's easy to apply. It's sticky. I can apply it to the wall and then put mud over top of it. But there is a caveat to using Mesh tape. You have to use quickset muds. Mesh tape is designed to be used with quickset muds. And here's a quick little example of why you need to use that. So when you use an air drying mud, it shrinks. So if you've ever prefilled a joint heavy with air drying mud, you can see it hollows out in shrinks. But quickset doesn't often do that. In fact, quickset expands a little bit. So here's what happens. When you use air drying mud on a joint with Mesh tape, what it does is it sort of sucks the tape in. And as the tape is sucked in, Mesh tape loses its strength. And when there's movement, it's going to crack. When you use quickset, which expands a tiny bit, it actually puts the tape under tension. And we already know Mesh tape does really well under tension. So as the quickset expands, it puts the tape under tension, which gives it more resistance to cracking. Much like when they post tension concrete in a bridge or something like that. You know, they tighten it up so that all the steel, all the rebar is under tension, providing greater strength for the structure. Same idea. Now, I know a lot of you are going to say, but Ben, I taped my place with Mesh tape and air drying mud, nothing happened. That's right. Most of the time, it won't crack. However, when you're doing drywall for a living, you're only as good as the last joint that cracked. And the only time I would tape a job with Mesh tape and even quickset is when I'm given a tailgate warranty. And I don't like to give those. Do you know what a tailgate warranty is? A tailgate warranty is when the warranty expires when your tailgate goes over the horizon. So nobody wants those. So that's why I use paper tape and taping mud or all purpose. There is a bigger learning curve to using paper tape, but it is well worth it in the end. The main thing you have to think about is you need your mud to be saturating into the tape so that it sticks to the wall and fuses the paper of the new drywall to the paper of the paper tape with mud. They kind of mesh together and embed. It's time we go take a look inside and see what sort of joints I use Mesh on and what I use paper on. Here's the job. Nice tall ceilings. Hopefully the echo is not too bad. Okay, so here we have a big patch. It's all been pre-filled and this is all going to get paper tape. And the reason is there's a big structural component. That's a post. See right there? It's carrying all the way over there to another post. And there's no way I'm going to put Mesh tape which could crack on a structural joint. Another one right here where we're joining new framing to the old wall. This is again going to get paper tape. There's no way I'm putting Mesh tape there. But joints, paper. So let's see what we use Mesh tape for. Well here's something, a little patch in the wall. That's good enough for Mesh tape. That's good enough for Mesh tape. That joint on the ceiling though. That's going to get paper. This exterior wall right here, subject to movement and hot and cold, getting paper tape. This behind the tile backsplash, it's going to get paper tape without pre-filled. We're just going to slap it on. Little joint right here going to be under the corner bead. Mesh tape is good enough for that. Small patch in the ceiling. Mesh tape. Large joint across the ceiling. Connecting two large pieces of ceiling. Paper tape. Guaranteed. Even all these little joints are going to get paper tape because it's actually quick and easy to install. More patches. Mesh tape is adequate. Another argument against paper is that it's slow. Well not really, I mean production tools anyone. You can't use any of these with Mesh tape. And you also can't use Mesh tape in corners. I know some people do. And yeah it's been fine but honestly why would you put Mesh tape in a corner? Paper tape has a crease specifically designed to go in a corner. There is no crease in Mesh tape. You have to fold it in yourself and then hope that you can magically make a straight corner after the fact. So there's really no reason to use these in corners. And the only reason that I don't use paper tape on all of my very small patches is one, they're all securely fastened and are never going to move in crack. And two, because when you're putting a bunch of small pieces of paper tape all laid out on little patches they kind of overlap and they're hard to wipe out. So that's the only reason I don't. Otherwise I would do 100% paper all the time. So anyways this is one tradesman's opinion on Mesh versus paper. Mesh has its place. I do use it a fair bit but only when I am sure that it will not be subject to movement and won't crack. Unless of course you're the kind of customer that's getting a tailgate warranty. So anyways I hope you at least found this useful, interesting or informative. If you didn't I'm sure you'll let me know in the comments. Thanks for watching Vancouver Carpenter. If you don't want to miss out on any other videos be sure to subscribe. You can always hit that thumbs up to let me know what you thought and happy taping to you.