the sugru blog

Ahh... am I missing something? What is sugru?

the first hack is the deepest…or something!

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Filed under: Wonderful Hackery, tip

Thanks Luke for the title suggestion :) The last few days have been amazing to see so many people sending back their ‘first hacks’ – we’re so stoked that so many people are getting stuck into their packs as soon as they get them, and some of them are damn clever as well. Here are a few first hack beauties !

Aaron: “My iMac’s in a setup where it’s nearly impossible to look behind it to access the ports when I need to plug something in and due to it’s slightly unusual placement it’s not very easy to rotate either. So I tried something out with my first pack of Sugru to add ‘braille’ coded bumps over the ports so I can tell which is which purely by touch.”

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Hamish: “My iPhone’s headphones’ rubber coating was starting to come off, and since I recognised from past experience that the jack was also about to go, while reinforcing both of these I also added a piece of double-sided Velcro so I’d have an integrated cable-tie!”

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Matthew and Luke both repaired their laptops – I love how two completely separate people did the same repair and both chose orange !!
Luke also repaired his adaptor: “one of the handy flippy-out ear tabs on the mains adaptor, which allow you to coil the cable neatly, snapped off a while ago, leaving me to wrap the cord around the body of the adaptor – which is a pain. So I’ve moulded a new ear into the space left by the broken-off part and am hoping that when it has fully cured that it will actually work. Couldn’t resist inlaying some left-over sugru into the recessed apple logo on the adaptor to coordinate the whole thing with the laptop…”

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Chris dove in and made his first ever hack – repaired his snapped curtain rail !

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Brilliant ! What’s going to be your first sugru hack?

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Other People's Comments

My first pack of sugru is coming in the post sometime soon and I can’t wait for it! I plan on hacking a beautiful flower pot my son made me that split perfectly in half down the middle with some of the green sugru I ordered. Then I plan on hacking some “feet” onto the velvet tray I use to make my jewelry with. It’s forever sliding around the table when I want it to be still.

Aprylle on June 24, 2010 at 10:02 am

Awesome! keep us posted how they go :)

Jane on June 25, 2010 at 9:21 am

I got my first pack of sugru recently, and have done a few things so far:
– put a nodule of sugru on my right-hand earbud, so I can tell which way round they go more easily
– made a little pointer for my computer speakers, so I can see at a glance if the volume is turned up (or not), plus it makes it easier to turn the knob!
– added the ‘morse’ dots to my USB cables (headphones, ipod cable, camera cable), so I can tell which way up they should go

all from one small 5g sachet! And I had a bit left. :-)

Dave on June 25, 2010 at 1:46 am

Not to be a killjoy, but I don’t think repairing a broken wood dowel with sugru is particularly brilliant. Sugru is not that cheap, so it isn’t cost effective, and it’s not green either. I’m sure the production, pollution and energy cost of making and shipping that sugru is a WHOLE lot more than replacing the curtain rail and reusing the wood for another project… Sugru seems like a really cool material but to save money and be green it should only be used on items which would be costly to replace and can’t be otherwise reused.

Katherine on June 27, 2010 at 12:26 pm

After buying two packs at the Maker Faire (hi, Jane!) I had “sugru stage fright” until last night. Report of my first hack will follow after the 24 hours has expired.

Michael M. Butler on June 26, 2010 at 1:44 am

To “Katherine”,
You may be correct about it not being ‘green’ to use sugru to repair wood. But I didn’t want a new curtain rail, and my current one isn’t available anymore, hence the repair… Also at £1 per 5g pack it works out cheaper to repair than buy a new curtain rail.
Also, sugru is so good and so orange that it made me use it ASAP.

Chris Ansell on June 28, 2010 at 10:24 am

To Mr Ansell.
Im sorry but i have to agree with Kat on that one. Your idea is not a good one at all. You should have just got a new curtain rail. It looks really odd and altho your wallpaper seems to be a similar colour i really believe that it was a complete waste of the precious substance no matter how cheap it is. You seem to be the type of person that will buy things and just have them go wrong on you especially if you spend alot of money on it. Its like buying a new motorbike and just throwing it down the road. Getting it fixed up and pretending like its new when in actual fact the damage that was done to it was such that means you need a new bike.
But i suppose ther is nothing stopping you from buying some more and trying again.
10 out of 10 for trying tho.
0 out of 10 for actually succeeding.

Ben Lewry on July 14, 2010 at 4:42 am

Hey Ben, I have to disagree ! :)
Chris’s curtain pole repair saved something that’s not always easy to replace, the curtain pole looks old and nice and I bet finding another one to match wouldn’t be easy. 
Even if that wasn’t the case we included it on the blog because of the sheer satisfaction that Chris got from the problem being solved, and that buzz is one of the best things about repairing things and making them work again. (Admittedly I didn’t refer to that in the blogpost though… maybe I should have…)
Either way, I say 10 out of 10 for rescuing something, making it work again, for proudly repairing and feeling the intense satisfaction of it not going in the bin! 
Jane.

Jane on July 19, 2010 at 8:48 am

Ah, headphones! I reinforced the loose plug on a pair of pretty nice, big headphones I bought in middle school (14years ago!). They’re still kicking, but the housing connecting the plug to the cord has been coming apart for years. No longer!

(Worth noting that if I bought a pair of comparably marketed and priced headphones today [I think I paid $80 for them in 1996?] I doubt they would last half that long.)

P on July 26, 2010 at 9:13 am

Better luck next time, I hope. Inspired by the headphone hack above, wanted to turn my ipod earbuds into something slightly more ear fitting, but found sugru is a bit too stiff for that. It’s ok for the ring around the earbud, but not for a whole into-ear extension blobby thing. Nothing ventured, nothing gained – I peeled it off. At least now I know what it feels like dried and am ready to move on to the next project.

Damaro on July 28, 2010 at 3:07 am

Looks like a really Jebby Hack to me.

Doud on November 11, 2010 at 2:38 am