Gardner Bender LTB-400 Liquid Electrical Tape, Easy-on, Waterproof, Indoor/Outdoor Use, 4 Oz. Jar, Black

Works!

I had the insulation crack off an electric cord right at the connection to an adapter. I could separate the copper strands from each other (barely) but regular electrical tape was not an option. Ultimately this did the trick. It’s a little more watery than I expected but starts to congeal quickly. In my case, the brush was too big. Not really sure in what application the clunky brush would be useful. I actually used a toothpick! I dipped the tooth pick in the jar and let that first bead drip on the wires. Then I would spread it if needed. I could then wipe the toothpick off on a napkin to use again. (Or toss it) My only complaint is that this comes with absolutely NO instructions! NOTHING! Should I stir it? Shake the bottle? How long does it takes to dry. When is it good to put on another coat. All the text on the packaging is precautionary in nature. Emergency care, etc. But NO directions at all. On the Amazon listing it said it fully cured in 24 hours. If you’re going to apply several layers it would take weeks! It seems to be dry to the touch in an hour or two. I would put some on and wait a bit. Then turn the unit over and apply again and wait again. I must have done something right because it works but it would be nice to know when its safe to apply another coat without ruining the previous one. Also, I got the white so that I could see where the repair was. Black on black may look nicer but it would be hard to tell if I missed a spot. I don’t know how long this will last in the bottle. I’ve had this a month and its fine. All in all I’m happy with this purchase and suspect it will come in handy for things I haven’t thought of yet.

Works

Gardner Bender has switched to a plastic lid. It looks like they have no longer have any quality control in Mexico. First bottle of white was semi dried out and lid was not tight. Amazon sent a second bottle and it too was semi dried out and lid was not tight. It is less than a 1/2 full bottle, Solvent evaporated. The black with a metal lid was fine. The black weighed 1.2 ounces more. Problem reported to Amazon support. They might not have any good ones on hand. This problem has been going on all year from the reviews I’ve seen. March 24, 2017 September 1, 2017 July 25, 2017 February 17, 2017 from 9 months ago Amazon comment about leaking (loose lid?) Hello, We've spoken to Amazon on this issue and it has been resolved. Please work with Amazon on a replacement unit. If you have any further questions or issues, I recommend you reach out to our Customer Service Team. 800.624.4320 [email protected] I emailed G B Tech support and this is an excerpt: This failure would be the first complaint we have heard about our liquid tape. And yet Amazon comment on another customer: Gardner Bender Customer Service 3 months ago Hello, Thank you for the information. You should be receiving a full bottle when you make a purchase. Based on your feedback I believe the bottle might've opened a little during shipping. This could've caused it to be thicker and a little dry on the top. If some leaked out this would also explain why the bottle was not full when you received it. If you let Amazon know about this, they will send you a replacement free of charge. If you prefer, you can also reach out to us directly and we'll help you out by sending a replacement as well. [email protected] 800.624.4320 Either the lid is not put on tight or the design of the lid is bad. Shame as when it is good it works better than the other brands I tried. When fresh this has a nice balance between too thick and too thin as some other brands. I had to repair some burnt wires 4 years ago, in my jeep when the bracket came loose and the harness lay against the exhaust manifold. I put on 4 thin coats letting it dry a couple of hours between applications. I just discovered that the harness has disintegrated because of heat and exposed the wires. The liquid tape did their job as the wires are fine. Bottle had a metal lid. Update 2-28-2019 Bottles now have their metal lids back. Product now fine. 4 stars due to big price jump.

I've had liquid tape before and I'm sure there are many uses for the product. Recently I was rebuilding hydraulic cylinders on my tractor. The cylinders have slots to access removal pins. I found rust inside around these pins. After repair and removal of rust, I wanted a method to deter rust at these slots. A profession hydraulic cylinder repairman told me about using liquid tape. I bought red so it would be obvious and applied several coats to fill the access slot. Worked great and now no water can enter the access slot. By the way, a little trick for storing many liquids like this liquid tape. After opening it might dry up quickly. Store it upside down. This minimizes exposer of the liquid inside to the air. I use this technique on many liquids in my shop.

Always on hand in my ham shack and laboratory for the purposes in the title. Brushes on quickly and smoothly, dries to handle in a relatively short time, and completely weather ready overnight. No failures here in any Texas weather from desert heat to panhandle snow and ice to hurricanes at the coast. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

When diagnosing electrical issues in cars, I prefer to use a piercing tool to poke through wiring insulation so I can connect a multimeter, test light, or oscilloscope. Some people say you should back-probe the connector and that poking insulation is for hacks, but I've run into plenty of instances when back-probing a connector "fixes" a corroded or intermittent connection. Good luck trying to fix the problem when you can't get it to act up. Piercing the insulation means that you have to seal the hole back up, and that's when liquid electrical tape comes in. A quick dab seals the hole in the insulation. Not too long ago I had to use this to repair an engine wiring harness. The insulation had split on several wires in the harness and the conductors were intermittently touching one another, setting all sorts of trouble codes when the signals shorted. I grabbed the liquid electrical tape because the alternative was to cut, solder, and heat-shrink about a dozen wires in a cramped engine compartment. Instead, I cleaned the wiring harness, dabbed liquid electrical tape over each bare conductor, let it dry, and used wire loom and cable ties to secure the harness and keep it from moving. It's been almost a year and I've had zero problems with the wiring harness. This stuff is a life-saver for quick repairs, especially in difficult-to-reach areas.

I bought the black, and used it to repair headset wires where the insulation was coming off due to repeated flexing. i will also use it in the future where I otherwise would try to use heat-shrink tubing.

When those occasions arise where you need to reinsulate wire, where moisture can be a concern or just the inability of electrical tape to keep that wire secure a product like this will 100% fit the bill. Less expensive than a store, Amazon Prime shipping...I couldn't fail. Working time is not an issue as you use this to give a quick coating and then just let it air cure. The amount of cure time depends on coat thickness however from a thin 30 gauge wire aprox 15 minutes to a thicker 8 gauge wire aprox minutes it typically takes for myself. I'm sure humidity and heat can also play a factor. Depending upon use the attached brush works good however dunking the object if it is small enough into the bottle can also work. I've dunked my items quite often with perfect results every time. This can also be used in another regard...to protect against a sharp edge and I've done this a number of times. Since this liquid tape adheres to the surface very well a couple layers thick will protect against that sharp edge. You can also use this type of product to just give better grip to something that is slippery. I had crafted a couple mobility items to help people with their needed tasks and since plastic can be slippery, coating with this type of product will give that rubber non-slip type of grip. A quick coating worked very well. I'm impressed with this as it's worked for my own needs without fail. Helpful, is how I hope you find my review

This product was used to seal a repair to an underground electrical to a telephone cable. It was easy to apply (3 coats, 1 day apart) and, so far, no problems after 2 months. Being bright red it was easy to see what parts had been treated.

Buena calidad

I'd heard of this in a few places and decided to try it with my latest project. I purchased both the Black and the Red for 12V applications. It is fairly odorous so use in a ventilated area. I applied liquid relatively thickly so that it was opaque and it takes a little while to dry. It dried to a fairly flexible coating to stranded copper wire, adheres to silicone, cable nicks, other wire insulation and solder joints well. So far the compound has remained in place and has not torn or begun to peel in a couple weeks. I cannot attest to being a water proof coating, how it would stand up in abrasive locations or longevity so use with common sense.

It does what it says. Magic! Pity there are no instructions... but it really works. You will need a little brush as one in lid is far too big.