I have two old vertical plastic storage cabinets that have plastic tambour-style doors with “live” hinges. In other words, the hinge is nothing more than a thin part of the door that is designed to flex as the door is slid up and down. The only problem is, as the plastic ages it becomes brittle and the door on one unit actually separated into four sections. Note the second cabinet has a redesigned door that has not had the same failure as the door I’m discussing here. I’m surmising the door design was changed to address this very issue.
I’ve been debating for a while on how to solve this problem as I didn’t want to throw the door away. Ultimately I decided to try the new (at least I think it’s fairly new) duct tape from the good folks at Gorilla glue. I’m a big fan of their adhesive, and thought this would be a good application of their tape. It’s relative inexpensive at $8.00+ a roll and I used about 1 1/2 rolls for this project. I applied the tape to both sides of the one door including the hinges that have not yet failed, figuring I might as well while I had the door out.
The tape is heavier and thicker than any other duct-type tape I’ve come across, and the adhesive is quite aggressive. I’m expecting it will hold up well over the long-haul, but we’ll have to see.
There’s an embedded YouTube video immediately below that provides more detail.