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Comment by jmkd | Hacker News Reader

Watched from the sidelines as Jane invented an early version of Sugru at college in 2003/4. Everyone I knew (and me) thought she was completely bonkers, developing a weird substance that didn't seem to do anything but make a horrid mess of well-designed objects. Saw how doggedly she persisted for years to get it off the ground, eventually winning me over (in theory) for the main use cases. But still, as a hard-won fan with 15 years of anecdotal observation turned admiration, and as an accomplished DIYer and general proponent of fixing things, I couldn't find a use for Sugru in my life.

The real story here is a major life effort, not a crowdfunding over reach.

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Wow, I'm surprised to hear this. My wife and I bought an antique dresser. It was in perfect condition except some of the metal handles had broken apart. We didn't want to buy a mismatched handle, and we didn't want to have to replace all the handles, which were so beautiful, to achieve consistency. My wife researched a bit, and she used sugru in a very thin layer to hold the back together. You could never tell the handle is broken, and the hold is very strong. It's a wonder material. We tried so many things to get the metal to stick, but nothing was strong enough. Sugru was.

I use Sugru on almost everything I own. It's on my steering wheel and gear shift, it is on my telephone protecting the camera lens, it's on my stylus, fountain pen, keys, and wallet.

Pretty much any time I think "that could have been designed better" I use Sugru. I agree that it's expensive, but it had saved me more money than it costs. I would actually love a subscription, where one gets a single packet in the mail once a month, to address the expiration issue.

Do you happen to have any photos documenting this? I'd love to see some of your use cases.

I'm not a big social media user, but if there is anything specific that you'd like to see, I'll photograph it.

I'm most interested in the phone camera, wallet and keys use cases.

I thought I would use it for everything, but with the price and expiration I just can't justify it over two-part epoxy putty, which works almost as well.

Ordered a few packs as novelty office Christmas gifts a few years ago. Used my own pack to repair a plastic shelf in my older refrigerator that had cracked where nothing else had succeeded.

Still holding up many years later. So I think fondly of Sugru every time I open my refrigerator. And when I do think of it, I can't help associate it in the back of my mind with Wallace and Grommit for vaguely ludicrous reasons.

I mildly regret never having occasion to make another order.

For those of us who have had a macbook power cube’s cable rip open on us due to its designed obsolescence.... A little bit of Sugru would have saved us $40-80. Sadly it’s one of those things you have to know to do before it’s too late.. like knowing to put on a screen protector before your screen gets scratched.

All of the rubber feet on my Macbook Pro degraded or fell off within a couple of years of purchase. I replaced them all with Sugru. They look better than the originals and have lasted longer.

Fixing frayed cables is one use case I found.

As an alternative, I've had great luck using silicone tape for fixing frayed cable ends.

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