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We’ve all got far too used to used to trowing out as soon as something is broken or damaged. And whilst most of the time it is cheaper to buy new than to repair the old, I can’t tell you how guilty throwing things out makes me feel. Now i’m not suggesting the indecent act of hoarding, but I may just have the solution to your missing toaster knob, the broken glass on your blender or the hole in your aluminum drink bottle.

I’ve got an example here of some serious slow living from Jess (Wear section). You see she was carrying around her aluminium bottle upside down and drinking from the hole at the bottom, and she refused to throw it out no matter how ridiculous it looked, convinced that there was a solution. And lucky she didn’t, because I had just the thing for her.

Some of you may have heard of this miracle product, Sugru – to hack things better. I first saw Sugru at the Design Museum in London. I was thoroughly impressed with it and being a self proclaimed hacker I bought a pack at the museum shop, knowing I would find it useful. Sugru can be used for hacking things, making them better, more ergonomic, personal, but more importantly it can be used to repair your broken possessions.

So along comes Jess’s damaged bottle and what better way to test out the hacking potential. I’ll take you through what I did step-by-step, very simple indeed.

step – 1.  First let’s inspect the damaged area.

step – 2. Make sure the surface is clean and dry.

step – 3. Pick your sugru colour, I went with black.

step – 4. Open the packet, and take the sugru into your hand and roll it like a ball of plasticine.

step – 5. Mould around affected area, into any shape you like. This bit can get a little messy. The colour of sugru will likely rub off onto your hands a bit but don’t worry it comes of with hot soapy water and some scrubbing. Make sure you don’t spread the sugru too thin, it works best when  it’s thicker.

step – 6. Once you’re happy with your moulding leave your object in a cool dry place to set for 24 hours.

step – 7. Enjoy your repaired/hacked object.

It was a lot of fun to do and it certainly makes me happy that the bottle will still be used. You can buy Sugru online here, and make sure you check out their blog for some great hacking ideas.

Have fun and start hacking!

Sab.

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