Like many folks reading this, I’ve fallen victim to a lot of the “As Seen On TV” products – that look good and work great, but only in the commercials. Many of these products, are indeed a great idea. However, when they are actually manufactured, they fall far short of performing as they are shown on television. It is usually just poor execution of the manufacturing process. A huge number of these products are produced in China – and they are junk – plain and simple. Shop at any of the “Dollar” stores, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. This stuff is sold for a dollar, and in many cases, these products are not worth a buck. But some of the products sold in these stores do work well, and make great stocking stuffer Christmas gifts for kids.
I’m a homeowner. Well, to be more accurate, the mortgage company and I own my house. It is great – at times – having my own property, to do with as I please. However, there are a lot of times that being a homeowner just tries my patience and tests the limits of my skills. Luckily, one of my neighbors is a retired US Air Force guy, with a great set of skills and experience. He comes to my rescue and helps me complete my projects or even flat out does them for me. And, he won’t take a penny for his efforts. However, I manage to “pay” him with lots of shooting fun. I provide some of the latest firearms and ammo, and he takes that as pay. He helps me quite often, with my firearms articles – quite often he’s one of my volunteer shooters. He’s more than happy to do some shooting, instead of me paying him for his work. What a great guy!
There are still a lot of small projects that I attempt to handle myself, with my limited knowledge of how things work, and what it takes to make them work better, or get them back into working order. For many years, I saw the television commercials hawking Flex Seal Products and didn’t think too much of them – considering how many other products sold on television turned out to be junk, and just didn’t perform as advertised. As I said, many are great ideas, just poorly executed when it came to producing those products.
The first Flex Seal product on the market was their Flex Seal spray, and it came in any color you wanted – so long as it was black. Today, Flex Seal, has a lot of different colors, to suit the job at hand. The Flex Seal spray is a “rubberized” liquid in a spray can – like spray paint in a can – and it was advertised as being a miracle product in a can. Well, to be honest, this stuff does work quite well, but not just as well as advertised. The commercials show the user simply spraying on this product to stop leaks of all kinds. Well, in my experience, it works – but not that well! It usually takes several coats of this stuff to stop leaks – even small leaks, but it does work! So, that’s the good news. The bad news is that this stuff in the regular-sized can costs about $12 per can – and it doesn’t go all that far. But it does work, if you give it time to dry before applying more coats.
On My Camping Trailer
We own a 22-foot travel trailer, it sits in our front yard and is used as a spare bedroom, whenever we have company or relatives spending the night or a few days. The trailer is actually much nicer than our house is – really! However, it is a “toy” and like many toys, it always needs some kind of attention, to keep it in tip-top shape. A lot of the parts are plastic, and they get brittle and crack, so it needs a little attention. I have used either Flex Seal spray, or Flex Seal Flex Shot. The latter comes in a small can, and it looks like a small tube of everyday caulking. It’s also great for sealing around windows in your home. I’ve used the Flex Shot, to re-caulk around the window in the door of the trailer from some small leaks. As a rule, in Western Oregon we get a lot of rain, for 8-months out of the year. It only took me about five minutes to seal around this frosted window – inside and outside. While not a professional job, it did what I wanted it to do.
The wheel wells around the trailer’s tandem wheels have plastic around them. Those plastic trim pieces looked great – when they were new. However, the sun and elements caused a lot of this plastic to shrink, crack, and look bad. I used the Flex Seal spray for these repairs, but wasn’t satisfied – so I applied the Flex Shot – again, not a professional job, but it sure beats spending hundreds of dollars for replacing this trim around the wheel wells.
Many trailers – big and small – have a rolled-on “rubber” roof – however, it doesn’t take much to cause a rip in the rubber roof, or bad weather can cause leaks. One of my roof vents had a small dripping leak – just enough to get things wet inside. We really do take good care of the roof, however, things happened no matter how hard we work at keeping things from leaking. Two summers back, our youngest daughter got up on the roof of the trailer and recoated it with stuff specially made for this sort of thing. Well, last year, we had a small leak around one of the roof vents. I got a tall ladder, and shimmied up alongside this roof vent – not putting my body weight on the roof, for fear of it breaking. I used an entire can of Flex Seal spray – white in color – and sprayed all around the food vent and the gasket. “Viola” no more leaks. A new roof vent would have cost me $50 or more, plus all the time involved in replacing it – with no guarantee that my do-it-yourself repair would have prevented any future leaks.
On My Deck
Has anyone priced lumber these days – since the pandemic? If so, you know what I’m talking about – a 2×6 that is 8 feet long is running about $23 and it’s not first-quality wood, either. The four steps leading up to my front deck are in need of replacement – I simply can’t afford that right now – and it’s a big job – bigger than you’d think it would be. So, I got some Flex Paste, and spread it around on the cracks and other areas that were looking poorly. Flex Paste is very thick and a bit hard to apply. However, I did the best I could. After it dried, I used the black Flex Seal spray over the white Flex Paste, and it looks pretty darn good, considering that an old man did the repair.
Sealing a Pool Leak
Our oldest daughter, who lives next door to us in our small guest cottage, bought a small wading pool for her German Shepherd to play in, during the hot summer months. Last year had the hottest summer on record in our area. Well, her dog managed to cause a rip in the pool – ouch! Our daughter bought some Flex Tape, and made the repair, while there was still water in the pool. It worked – and there has been no leaks – that’s performance, if you ask me.
I’ve also used Flex Paste on mouse holes. Living out in the country, it is a job keeping mice out of the house, especially in the winter months. We set traditional mousetraps, poison, and even sticky traps, but we never seem to get them all. Whenever we find a small hole in a wall, we first stuff it with some steel wool, then use the Flex Paste over it. No more mice, at least from that location.
Summer months, we have a problem with wasps and even ants – no matter how much we spray to kill these little bugs, we can’t get rid of them all. So we use Flex Spray over the holes where they have their nest – end of story.
I believe that Flex Seal products might be some of the best “As Seen On TV” items to ever come along, in my opinion. While we haven’t used all the products that Flex Seal makes, we are more than a little impressed and pleased with the ones that we have used. None of this stuff is inexpensive, per square inch covered. But many people call it a “handyman in a can” and I can’t fault that title in the least. How many products have you used over the years, that work as advertised, and are as easy to use, as advertised? I should also note that we are now starting to see copycat Flex Seal products. I can’t attest to the quality of these products, as I haven’t used any of them. I’m more than a little pleased with the original Flex Seal spray and other products from them that I’ve used over the years.
On My Truck
One last mention: I purchased a like-new Dodge Ram 1500 pick-up three years ago – and we are talking really like new – with one exception. The truck is a 2014 model and it only had 14,000 miles on – it looked showroom new, with one exception. Whoever owned it before, must have transported some barbed wire in the bed of the truck. It was scratched all over. I gave it a good washing, and I applied two cans of the Flex Seal (black) to the bed and sides of the bed. Two coats all total – and it looked great…there are a few scratches on the tailgate, from sliding stuff in and out of the bed, and I’ll get to re-doing them in the Spring…but the Flex Seal has held up better than I thought it would.
We keep several types of Flex Seal products on-hand all the time – even in the travel trailer. It can sure save you a lot of work and serious repairs. Check some of the Flex Seal products out for your next repair jobs. I think you’ll really like them. Their versatility is particularly apropos for preppers and survivalists.