Sugru: a silicone molding compound for hacking around the house

[brandon]

My two personal experiences with Sugru so far:

1. The stuff is amazing. As an experiment, I completely coated an 802.15.4 temperature sensor in a thin coat and threw it into an autoclave (to test the temperature claims, etc). It held up.

2. Customer service has been amazing. The Sugru I received came from a batch with a slightly shortened shelf-life because of mixture issues, so they sent me a second order for free. No questions asked, no forms, nothing. Just an email "sorry about that, the replacement is in the mail."

[bonsaitree]

Despite the clever marketing (and it is quite clever), hand-formed room-set silicone has been used in the building trades for almost a decade--mostly for long-run ductwork dampening and high-service-interval electrical junction box seals.

It's precisely analogous to when cyanoacrylate adhesive compounds were re-marketed as Krazy Glue.

[camccann]

Merely "clever" doesn't seem quite strong enough. Taking something already well-known and useful in some specialized context, thinking of a way it would be useful for some non-specialized target market, and then successfully marketing it to that demographic is a very elegant move, and potentially quite lucrative if successful!

In fact, if I was going to critique this at all, I'd question the choice of marketing. They're targeting younger, geeky DIY-type internet people well, which is not a bad market at all to be sure, but there's definite potential for something like this in going for older, less tech-oriented demographics (I bet I could get my mother interested, for instance).

But I suspect they've already thought about that sort of thing--sounds like they can't keep up with the current demand as it is, so reaching new markets is probably not a priority!

[iamelgringo]

Do you know where I can get some? I've googled for "Hand formed room set silicone" to no avail. Any other names/brands it could be under?

[keenerd]

> hand-formed room-set silicone

My cheap knockoff version: Two part epoxy cut with sawdust. Not so good at high temperatures, but much stronger.

[gjm11]

Hearing that makes me more likely to buy some -- less chance of spectacular unpredicted failure modes if it's been in use for ages.

[gnosis]

This stuff reminds me of ShapeLock (aka Friendly Plastic):

http://www.creatrope.com/blog/make/friendly-plastic-shapeloc...

http://www.lonestarairsoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8822

http://www.micsaund.com/2006/03/13/plastic-you-can-mold-in-y...

The differences seem to be that ShapeLock:

- requires some heat to get it in to a moldable state

- is firm, not rubbery when it sets

- is not sticky

- is reusable (just heat it up again, and you can re-shape it)

Here's something made from it:

http://www.xrobots.co.uk/android10.htm

[teaspoon]

What's with introducing female engineers and designers as "lovely"? That's generally speaking, since it's probably just precious copywriting in this case.

[sjf]

Lovely _and_ Irish, how twee. I am a female Irish engineer and I would be very disappointed and a little insulted if a copywriter couldn't find a better description other than 'cute with a funny accent'.

[sasmith]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_4a4O7kXQo

[audionerd]

I thought the best short introduction to the product was this interview w/ pictures:

http://www.iconeye.com/index.php?option=com_content&view...

[sh1mmer]

FYI: They are sold out while they work on upscaling their production process.

[shrikant]

If more product websites were like this, the world would be a better place.