Fix anything with Sugru, the wonder glue?

I stumbled across this mouldable glue that sets to a hard rubber, about 5 years ago at the Gadget Show Live trade day. It’s come a long way since then and I’ve even seen it at our local B&Q.

It comes in packs of small 5g sachets and is available it multiple colours which can be mixed to make even more colours should you desire. Once a sachet is opened, it goes off pretty quickly and you can’t save it. So it’s best to save up a few jobs if you only need a few bits so none gets wasted. It takes 24 hours to set completely so if you’re impatient like me you may have to plan your repairs or hacks carefully.

Putting it to use

Worn Toyota Verso car key

I had a few jobs in mind to put Sugru to the test. First off the key for my car which has seen better days:

Considering a new key is around £200 this seemed like a perfect repair for Sugru. There aren’t many things that would work for this repair since the button still needs to be depressed and whole key has to fit in the key slot for the car’s push start ignition. Therefore it needs to be flexible and it must not add any additional thickness to the key.

I rolled up some Sugru the size of a pea and smoothed it around the worn out area. You can feather it slightly with a wet finger. Here is the result after 24 hours drying time and it works perfectly. It still fits in the key slot and the lock function works just as before.

Shoe repair

This is a fairly ambitious repair but the sole of my son’s trainer had become detached and I still had plenty of Sugru left to try my luck:

I smeared Sugru all around the join between the upper and sole, again feathering with a wet finger and left for 24 hours with a rock as a weight to keep the shoes for separating. It appears to have worked but he’s not worn them in anger yet so will have to report back:

Add some identification to a door key

I have two identical keys that open my shop front door and have tried various methods to distinguish them over the years. All methods seem to eventually fail in some way. I stuck a little Sugru to either side of the key and poked some little dimples in for extra grip. The result is very good and again time will tell how long it lasts:

Fix my woodworking dust mask

This is probably not going to help an awful lot of people but this Trend powered respirator has been broken for years and it’s the type of hard plastic that is difficult to repair.

This isn’t a pretty repair but I applied a blob all around the crack and again left for 24 hours with very satisfactory results:

Attempt inner tube valve repair

I wasn’t expecting this to work and it didn’t but I was desperate! The valve on my daughter’s bike split on a bank holiday weekend when we were away on holiday last week. No bike shops were open so I couldn’t get an inner tube – I thought I’d give Sugru a try. Unfortunately although it appeared to stick well, when I flexed it slightly it came apart. Perhaps if I’d cleaned the valve with some isopropyl alcohol it may have worked but I doubt it.

Conclusions

Pros

• Very easy to use
• Sticks very well to many things
• Remains flexible
• Resistant to heat and moisture
• Comfortable rubbery feel

Cons

• Fairly expensive for a single small repair or hack – better to save up a few repairs
• Drying time (24 hours) quite long for impatient people like me
• Unopened sachets have limited shelf life so don’t buy in bulk!
• Opened sachets can’t be saved
• Doesn’t stick to everything (but not much does)

I’m already a big fan of Sugru and will certainly keep a few packs to hand!

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