The claim: Sugru is a moldable glue that looks and feels like Play-Doh but acts like Super Glue and sticks to pretty much anything, turning into a strong, flexible, waterproof rubber overnight. It bonds to aluminum, steel, ceramics, glass, wood and some fabrics and plastics, giving it thousands of use possibilities. Sugru comes in a variety of colors.
Cost: $12 for a pack of three; $22 for a pack of eight
Where: Lowe's or sugru.com
Two out of three isn't too bad when it comes to Sugru.
The product claims that it can stick to almost anything, from aluminum to wood and some fabrics and plastics. The key word being some.
I used the product on three distinctly different items just to put it through its paces. I used it to stick a metal button to my medicine-cabinet door to keep it closed. That worked perfectly. The button is sticking to the door well.
The second use was to seal a leaking water pipe temporarily. It slowed the leak, but didn't stop it, though it could be that I didn't put it exactly in the right spot. The glue does seem to be holding though.
For the third test, the rubber tips of walking shoes were pulling away from the fabric, so I put the glue in between.
It seemed to hold just fine the next morning, until I went outside in the cold.
Within an hour, the rubber tips had pulled away from the fabric, and the glue was brittle.
So I'm not convinced this is good for fabric, but for nonporous materials, it seems to work just fine.
My wife and I recently picked up a fancy wall mirror at a Troy Hill antiques shop's going-out-of-business auction.
It's beautiful — a 3-foot mirror encased in ornate woodwork. The only problem: The crown was loose, and a couple weeks ago, it came off.
I figured I'd need special wood glue and at least an hour of my time to fix it this weekend. I figured wrong. I simply opened one package of Sugru, spread the putty-like material along a groove where the missing piece fits, then stuck it in.
Ten seconds later, the mirror was fixed.
Two days later, it's still attached and showing no sign of loosening. Interesting. Time to test Sugru on more household mini-projects …
Things break. That's why they make Super Glue. However, there are times when Super Glue just won't work. Like when you have a broken cord on an iPod charger. Or a kitchen chair that has lost one of its four leg gliders.
Sugru, a “moldable glue,” offers a solution. OK, maybe it's not a solution, more like a putty.
It starts out as a very moldable putty, and it's supposed to dry — in 24 hours — into a rubber that sticks to almost anything. Just like glue.
Well, I put it to the test on my broken iPod cord. The product — which came as a white putty — molded easily around the frayed section of the cord. It's a bit stickier than Play-Doh but felt similar. There was a slight medicine-ish smell, but nothing off-putting. I also tested it on my kitchen chair, molding a round bead on the bottom of the leg.
The package says you have 30 minutes to make any adjustments, although I went back about an hour later and was still able to mold it a bit more.
A day later, the putty had, as promised, transformed into a solid rubber. The iPod cord was perfectly sealed and operated fine. But I noticed that, because I didn't smooth it out enough, my fingerprints were now tattooed forever on my work. The kitchen leg worked just as well. However, with only a small bit of prying, the bead of rubber came up. So much for permanency.
I can certainly see several places a product like this would come in handy, and I would definitely consider getting more Sugru — and the many colors it comes in.
