Sugru and Lego: turn anything into a mount for anything else

I love Sugru, the polymer clay that sticks anything to anything and dries to a durable, dishwasher-safe finish. In this little Sugru ad, they demonstrate how using Sugru to stick single Lego bricks to various surfaces turns anything into a mount for anything else. It's really fun, and reminds me of another great Sugru use: sticking a blob of Sugru over a rare-earth magnet and fixing it to a wall or other surface to make a magnetized sticky-point. (via Make)

• [RaleighSaintClair]

  I discovered Sugru last year and have used it for a number of great “life hacks”.  Using Lego is a great idea, thanks.  Just one note: Sugru expires.  I reached for Sugru I bought last year just the other day to make a better door stop (that won’t leave marks) and realized it hardened on its own. So use it when you buy it.

  • [shadowfirebird]

    It lasts longer if you leave it in the fridge, apparently.

    • [RaleighSaintClair]

      thanks for the tip

• [Gern Blanston]

  Elegant. Maybe it’s time to switch from my addiction to Velcro and duck-tape.

• [jimh]

  What a Wonderful Thing!
  Mind = swimming with ideas now!

• [Erik Gilson]

  Just a question about that magnet thing, does the Sugru leave marks on the wall if i were to take it off in a year or so? Would be nice in an apartment to be able to hang things like that and not have to worry about having to pay a deposit because it left a mark.

• [TacoChuck]

  I was very disappointed with my Sugru. I found it to be of little use for anything but putting a ‘grippy’ surface on things and not even the best material for that.

  I never found it adhesive enough to actually stick to anything with any degree or reliability, nor strong enough to do anything non-trivial with.

  Add to that the 6 month shelf life in the unused state and I ended up giving away most of my original purchase (a preorder, I was very supportive when first announced).

  I also contacted their customer service to see if I could get any sort of compensation (little bit of my money back or an additional small packet or two next year) to make up for the fact when I pre-ordered it was claimed it had a 12 month shelf life and was only informed of the 6 month shelf life via an insert in the mailing pouch. I would not have ordered the quantity I did if I knew it had a 6 month shelf life.

  Customer support’s response: Silence.

  Overall not a product or a company I can recommend.

  • [Eric Neuman]

    Have you checked out oogoo?  It’s an open source alternative you can make with silicone caulk (i use food grade) and corn starch.  http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-Your-Own-Sugru-Substitute/

• [kevteaff]

  Yeah, I ordered Sugru a couple of months ago because I thought it would be a useful product to have around the house. I ended up disappointed, it isn’t strong enough or flexible enough to fix the things I wanted it to do . My first experiment with it was to build a hook on my bookshelf to hold various electrical chords (fail), I used it to attempt to fix the broken hole in a car fob so I could re-attach it to my key ring (fail), I used it try to fix a broken rubber cover for a electrical outlet on my portable car battery charger thingy (fail), and I tried it to fix a drawer where the particle board had disintegrated (success!!, so far).  I think you could probably do much the same with various epoxy’s available at hardware stores, while spending much less $$ and having a longer shelf life…

  • [Nichalovesyou]

    Are you sure you gave the sugru time to cure/ didn’t use expired sugru? I’ve used sugru for a variety of projects (including attaching a fairly weighty lamp to the side of a bookshelf, so it could be a reading light), and they’ve been tremendously successful!

• [rockpiler]

  For the Sugru haters posting herein – Ur dooin’ it wrong.

  I have a phone in my pocket right now with multiple little bits of Sugru on it that have held on quite nicely for the better part of six months. I have a shower head holster with Sugru lining in my bathroom that has held up to daily contact with heat, water, and steam and shows no ill effects. These are but two of the many, many Sugru projects kicking around my life, and all of them are holding up just fine, thanks.

  Here is the secret: CLEAN YOUR SURFACES WITH ALCOHOL before you put Sugru on ‘em. Period. This is the single most important step to successful Sugru’ing and if you lazy out on that, you just wasted some Sugru, my friend.

  Also, try not to use it like it’s made of concrete or steel – it’s not designed to be load-bearing, so if you wanna make a hook out of it or something like that, try using some other material for the load-bearing part and put the Sugru over that for grip/safety/decoration/whatever. It ain’t magic putty, folks (but it’s close).

  • [Shibi_SF]

    Thanks for your insights.  I am going to order some of this Sugru stuff!  My quandary now is… the multi-colored pack or black and white pack?  I’m leaning toward the colored ones – do they fade at all?

    • [rockpiler]

      Well, I have used both the colored stuff and the black/white packs, and here are my observations on both:

      Colored – It took me a bit to get used to the seemingly arbitrary color choices offered by the Sugru folks, but after playing with it in various ways I have discovered that you can make a fairly wide range of colors from the blue, orange, and green by mixing them in different quantities (though no purple, red, pink, etc. are possible yet with the current lineup). I have to say I am not all that fond of the bright colors next to whatever “normal” materials I’m sticking it to, but that’s just me.

      So far I have not noticed any real degradation or changes over time, but the surface of well-used Sugru does tend to soften up just a bit in texture and appearance like any other worn-in material. Thus the color will soften just a touch, but that’s just the surface texture and not any kind of fading or discoloration. I have not done any testing myself on outdoor or in-sun applications, though, so YMMV.

      B/W – I LOVE BLACK SUGRU. It’s just the best for making lovely, hi-tech looking fixes and additions to just about anything you like. Works with electronic equipment and the like and just blends right in. My Sugrued HTC Thunderbolt looks so right people assume it’s a cover I bought in the store because I took the time to add texture and little touches to finish the Sugru once it had cured to a more workable consistency (10-15 minutes after initial application).

      White Sugru is fantastic for bathroom or kitchen uses because it looks so clean. Good for Mac parts too, for obvious reasons.

      Best advice I can give on Sugru – plan it out well before you make the leap. If you do your project right the first time, you will have a better object for as long as you want to keep the Sugru on it. If you screw it up, well – you can always cut the bulk off and scrape the residue away with a fingernail and try again with another pack.

      • [Shibi_SF]

        Wow, thanks!  I just bought both of the large packs because I couldn’t decide. 

        • [rockpiler]

          Sure! Happy Sugru-ing. Sugrueing?

          Watch out, though – If you’re like me, pretty soon you’ll find yourself muttering things like “Hm… li’l Sugru, fix that right up…” under your breath.

  • [TacoChuck]

     Couple of things here:

    No one is a “hater”, it looks like myself and one other person were disappointed in the product and shared our experiences with it. As I said, I was an early supporter, pre ordered.

    There is no “dooin’ it wrong” when they change the specs by cutting the shelf life in half after you order it.

    There is no “dooin’ it wrong” when a polite and friendly inquiry to the company is met with silence.

    If the alcohol prep is so important, you would think the manufacturer might mention that, they certainly didn’t in my packaging.

    Basically your examples and advice come down to exactly what I said: It makes an ok ‘grippy/protective’ surface on things and that is about it, but there are still better products to achieve that end that have a longer shelf life and are less expensive.

    If you like sugru more power to you, but not everyone finds it a good product.

    • [rockpiler]

      I don’t doubt you had a disappointing Sugru experience, TacoChuck, but I can’t help but notice that your stated issues have little to do with the product and more to do with the perceived lack of instruction and/or product support.

      While I can’t speak to your own personal experience, I can say that every packet of Sugru I have ordered (three different orders to date) has come neatly packaged with clear instructions on proper product usage, including a very careful admonition to clean the intended sticking surfaces with alcohol before Sugru placement and to use it within 6 months or it will cure in the package. Not sure if your package was somehow an early ugly duckling off the line or if you simply missed/misread/ignored the written materials that accompanied your product, but I can say that they really do make an effort now to educate Sugru buyers in correct usage.

      • [TacoChuck]

         Since I received amongst the first packages they shipped out I am going to assume they have changed the packaging since then. Or are they still printing the small packets with the 12 month shelf life listed and a black sharpie line through it to cross it out as mine were?

        There was 1/4 of a sheet of paper in my shipping package and it said nothing about alcohol prep. I am sure whatever accompanies the shipments now is very different than what I received as probably one of the first shipments they made.

        And while I agree the poor customer service is certainly not far from my mind when I think of sugru, it is the product itself I just don’t find very useful or economical.

        To each their own.

        • [rockpiler]

          …and more Sugru for me! <>

• [taras]

  The above video is improved with the audio from this one.

  Especially if you can line it up so the cuckoo sound matches with the minifigs appearing on the bike handlebars. (Yes, I’ve been replaying it for 10 minutes to get it right. WORTH IT.)

• [wrybread]

  For the folks wanting something stronger than suguru,I recommend epoxy putty. Amazingly strong stuff and sticks to anything.

  I just ordered some suguru, can’t wait to try it.

  Good tip about cleaning the surface with alcohol first. I’ve noticed that’s most definitely the secret with double-sided tape too. And incidentally, the grey double-sided 3m tape (the strong stuff, marketed as “outdoor tape”), is what separates man from the lower animals.

  • [rockpiler]

    Yeah, I’m no chemist, but it seems to me that most of Sugru’s bond with surfaces is mechanical. It’s really interesting, as it doesn’t seem to bond with objects, so much as conform so well to the object’s surface that it forms a kind of “suction” seal as it cures. There is some kind of molecular attraction going on as well, so the mechanical action isn’t the whole picture, but the fact that you can just cut / peel / scrape it off of most surfaces tells me it’s a bit different from most of the other adhesives or putties available.

    Swabbing with alcohol (or some other kind of evaporating solvent that won’t damage your surface – soap and water won’t really go the whole distance) makes sure that Sugru’s unique bonding action can get a really good grip. I have also found that the bond is much more secure over time and hard usage if you form the Sugru edges down flush with the surface instead of leaving a rolled edge to the Sugru blob as we’ve seen in so many online video clips.