25 Inventive Uses For Duct Tape

And You Laughed At The Car With Duct Tape On It

Duct Tape! The best emergency tool ever.

It’s cheap, it’s useful, and some people can’t live without it. Duct tape is one of those items with a thousand-and-one uses.

When I was younger, one of my favorite television shows was The Red Green Show. A portion of each episode was dedicated to the Handyman Corner. The character, Red Green, always had an idea for building some gadget to make life easier, and his secret weapon for every project was...Duct Tape. It was what he was known for.

See...duct tape is awesome.

Every emergency kit needs a roll of duct tape, if it already doesn’t have one. It’s just one of those extremely useful items you should keep around.

Look back on your life. How many ways have you found to use duct tape?

So, I thought it would be fun, and I hope helpful, to list some different -- but still mostly practical -- uses for the sticky gray matter (and I’m not referring to the other gray matter between your ears).

Here’s a list of duct tape uses, some practical and others just sounded fun. 

A Duct Tape List

1. Make Rope: Cut out enough long strands and twist them together to make a strong rope.
2. Make a spear: Find a stick and lash your knife to the end with duct tape, and you have a spear for...fishing...or self-defense.
3. Bind someone: Ever try to break or rip through several strands of duct tape? It makes effective bindings and handcuffs...just in case you need to restrain someone.
4. Fly strip: Get rid of those pesky insects by hanging a strip of tape in your tent, or even your house.
5. Reinforce knots: Add a little extra security to your knots with a simple wrap of tape.
6. Insulate boots: Keep your feet warm using duct tape to insulate your feet. The tape will also eliminate air space around your feet, helping to warm them.
7. Bandages: Secure Band-Aids with some tape.
8. Make a sling: Take care of that broken wing with a duct tape sling (Yes! I even got a rhyme in).
9. Make a boat: Yes, you can make a watertight boat using duct tape. Every summer my town has a duct tape regatta event on our little pond. Impressive how they make boats using only a few pieces of wood, cardboard and duct tape.
10. Blisters: Improvise a moleskin patch with tape to protect a blister.
11. Make a stretcher: Sticks and duct tape a stretcher will make.
12. Shelter construction: Aid your shelter building efforts with duct tape.
13. Fix shoes: Temporarily bind a broken sole or repair your boots.   
14. Mark a trail: Mark the way when a trail becomes obscure.
15. Make a splint: Keep that bone straight with sticks and tape. Wow...you can do a lot with sticks and duct tape!
16. Fire starter: Use it to start a fire.
17. Clothesline: If you can’t hang your clothes any other way, create a line with tape.
18. Pick up spills: One morning I was making my boys some hot cereal and spilled a bunch of it all over the stove. The duct tape happened to be out. I cut a strip and used it to clean up the cereal grains.
19. Remove a splinter: This supposedly works. Clean the area, apply duct tape, wait thirty minutes, and remove the tape...along with the splinter. I haven’t tried it yet; I haven’t been willing to purposely get a splinter.
20. Remove a wart: Kind of the same idea as the splinter. Cover the wart with tape, and through the process of removing tape every few days, it peels the wart off layer-by-layer.
21. Hold a wound together: If you're lacking in other methods for binding a wound together, duct tape is a quick, and temporary, way to close one.
22. Patch a tarp: Don’t throw that tarp away cause it has a hole or two. It’s still mostly good. Just make it better by patching the holes with duct tape.
23. Wrap injured ribs: Provide support to injured ribs by applying some tape.
24. Accessorize your arsenal: Tape that flashlight to the barrel of your shotgun...or alien killing rifle.
25. Cover your tracks: Go stealth by putting duct tape on the soles of your boots to cover the tread. Leave no trace.

All Hail Duct Tape!

There you have it. The many uses (and beyond) of duct tape. 

What more can I say about duct tape. We all know how useful it is; we’ve all used it before; it can literally fix almost anything. 

Plus, every survival-preparedness expert out there will tell you to add duct tape to your preparedness inventory for its sheer versatility.

I’m doing it right now. (Go get duct tape!) But the fact is... duct tape is one of those things that’s incredibly useful, often overlooked, and often underappreciated.

I know, I know… I’ll stop going on about duct tape. Everyone knows about duct tape. But I hope this post has added a few new ideas for duct tape use. 

And, if you have used duct tape in a unique way, please share it with us in the comment box. We love to hear new ideas and uses for items.