Another neat new product...sugru

[vizwhiz]

Thought this might be of extreme interest to our community of DIY's especially.
Apparently, this product has been around for several months, primarily in the UK and Ireland, and has some fantastic properties (like being electrically insulating when cured). I think it might be of great help in making mods of all types. I have no idea how much it costs or if it is available here in the USA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fOSo_EN-y4

[JoeG]

I would like to try it on the nuts and bolts protruding from the two mast hounds that keep catching my main halyard. I'm to lazy to cut the bolt down to size.

[seahouse]

For prices to North America...

http://sugru.com/us/buy/8-mini-packs-of-sugru-8x5g

[bartmac]

Just ordered some....interesting story to read if you have the time. I'm driven to fix things...comes from a upbringing by parents who went through a world war 2 occupation in Europe and thus had nothing much for the best part of 5 years.My kids (now grown up) always thought Dad could fix anything...its becoming harder as things are made to recipe of inbuilt obsolescence....so much so many things are now made so if you do pull them apart there's no way they'll go back together.I see traits in my kids which make me cringe regarding the replacement of things which are not worn out but no longer "good enough"
Not the way we brought them up but the world races ahead with new bright and shiny things every day and we MUST consume!! Enough of a rant... I digress

[DaveB]

This might be a good replacement for Duck Tape wonder if they will come out with a product that replaces the vise grips
3m 5200 is much better and I have been useing it since 1984 to repair leaks in my inflatable dingy.
You can easy use 4200 fast cure or 5200 fast cure to bound, mount, protective cover and such with long lasting qualities.
E-B epoxy slab is almost the same.
Another gimmit for those not aware. No warrenty, no term of life. My best guess is (me not Know...me not Tell..me take Money..Run like He..ll)


Dave

[jassr4848]

Here’s another neat product, my son in law turned me onto.
http://www.instamorph.com/

[mastreb]

So I ordered this stuff and received it yesterday.

I made a custom orthodic insert (I'm 3/4" taller on one leg than the other) that fits both my foot and my shoe, and costs $580 less than my orthodist charges for a custom insert (which sucks). This took 150 grams, so two 100 gram packs, and cost $30.



This one feels perfect, because I made it with my foot and my shoe, rather than from measurements. I put the stuff into a plastic ziplock sandwich bag so it wouldn't adhere to my shoe or sock while I was forming it, and then took it out of the sandwich bag before it hardened.

I used the leftover from a 100 gram pack to put a handle on a crappy old can-opener that's always around because it's the only one that just keeps working with all the more complicated stuff breaks.



To make new chair sliders, I put a pea-sized amount on the bottom of some chair sliders that were crappy and broken. I put a small piece of aluminum foil over them and then sat the chairs on the floor (this is after learning that sugru preferentially sticks to floors rather than chair sliders) to flatten them. Worked great.

Also used it to fix a broken bracket on the dishwasher foot kick plate, so now that stays on correctly, and put a small grip on my daughter's crochet needle so it won't hurt her finger to use it.

It starts out exactly like play-dough as they indicate. You can press it, roll it, flatten it, wrap it, and mash it as you please. It's very tacky, and a small amount will stick to your fingers, under fingernails, etc. It mostly washes off in the sink, completely washes off with a washcloth or after a shower. It takes 24 hours to completely set, but it's mostly done in 18. For about six hours, you can continue to refine it and work it as it hardens. You can easily shape it with simple tools like a butter knife if you want a more refined look, and after about two hours it will no longer stick to tools you shape it with.

This hardens to a much harder plastic than I thought it would be. It's not rubbery at all when its set, it's basically a hard plastic set.

I've already got a use I'm going to put it to on the boat: As a fixture for holding the vent tube in place on my vent-tube-led-aft mod. Basically all I'm going to do is take a 3/4" vinyl tube, stick it into the vent hole, build up a few grams of this around the tube and hole, put a loop in the tube as a water catch, and then lead it aft through the bilge and out the steering hole boot so that I can plug the vent hole right next to the ballast gate instead of sending someone down into the cabin to root around when we come in and go out. This one is simple: If it doesn't work, no harm done and I can just cut it off.

I'll post how it goes.

[mastreb]

Here’s another neat product, my son in law turned me onto.
http://www.instamorph.com/

I bought some of this instamorph as well. Very cool stuff! It's about 1/10th the price of Sugru per gram, but its a very different material. It's this material: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycaprolactone

It comes as BB sized beads. Pour an amount into a microwave safe bowl, add water, and microwave for about a minute. Or heat it up in a pot of water over any heat source. It turns from white to clear when it's moldable. The beads become sticky like a tapioca, and you can press them together. Then it forms like a warm plastic clay. You've got about five minutes of mold-ability, and as it sets it turns milky, and then back to white when it's hardened. It doesn't stick to much, and is fully set in about 15 minutes. It's completely re-meltable--just put it in warm water (140 degrees or so) until it's clear.

I used it to make another shoe lift just by putting the warm blob in my shoe and then pressing it to shape with my foot. Unfortunately, it works, but its too hard to be comfortable, unlike the Sugru which is perfect for that use. So I put a thin layer of Sugru on top of the plastic, which does the job, and costs about $5 total vice $30 for doing it in pure Sugru.

It hardens to a hard plastic and doesn't stick to much of anything else, so its more for quickly fabbing a part than it is for "fixing" things like Sugru, which sticks to most things. I wouldn't use it for any part under stress, but it would be easy to do things like make custom fairleads, hangers, retaining clips, or anything else that's expensive or not customized for a boat.

I made a plastic hook out of this, molding the plastic tank around a woodscrew. When it hardened, I took the woodscrew out with a screwdriver, leaving a perfect hole for screwing the hook to a wall. You could use this same technique to embed nuts in the plastic. I think it would be pretty easy to make plastic bimini connectors with this stuff as long as you didn't mind a "hand finished" look to your plastic parts. It would be difficult to shape precisely in time while it hardens, but you can machine or otherwise finish the plastic once it's hardened or remelt it with a heating iron.

This stuff would be excellent for making custom moldings, for example, around an instrument, or for making mounting bases for electronics. I'm considering making an iPhone mount for my motorcycle with it, since my handlebars won't work with typical iPhone mounts.

[vizwhiz]

Great review mastreb! Thanks for taking the time to fill us in!

This hardens to a much harder plastic than I thought it would be. It's not rubbery at all when its set, it's basically a hard plastic set.

I'm surprised that it hardens pretty hard...perhaps that more a size issue? If it is thicker or larger, perhaps it is less flexible?
I know that silicone, as flexible as it is in thin applications, can be a pretty hard lump when it is in a large ball...you can flex the surface, and you can tell it is a flexible material, but it doesn't "flex" all that much when you make a big lump of it. Sounds like this stuff does the same thing maybe?

[bartmac]

So impressed with the possibilities of Sugru...ordered some and looking for a fix...so far trying a heel on my wife's shoes...will test the abrasion resistance...certainly set harder than expected.Most other fixes ie plastic tank repair and quick metal etc are 2 part moldable solution which in the past have yielded really good results....always looking for other methods/materials/tools etc...."Dad can fix anything" was mantra I lived by as a kid and my kids were the same....WERE..... not any longer as most things are throw away

[Catigale]

[quoteI made a custom orthodic insert (I'm 3/4" taller on one leg than the other) that fits both my foot and my shoe, and costs $580 less than my orthodist charges for a custom insert (which sucks). This took 150 grams, so two 100 gram packs, and cost $30.][/quote]

I'll set up production and handle S&M.

Target price 290 to Medicare.....maybe we can bundle it with the Rascal, and keep moving ahead of the Federal subpoenas.....