Materials

Solid Ribbon Epoxy

Epoxy putty in solid strip cures when kneaded together

I just had occasion to fix my daughter’s eyeglasses. They had snapped at the hinge, in a place where neither glue nor tape would find any purchase, and we needed a way to repair them until we could replace the frames. For about $5 at Home Depot I got a tube holding enough epoxy putty to last for years of small repairs.

Epoxy putty is your standard two-component epoxy in concept, but like plasticene in initial consistency. You mix two strips by cutting an equal length of each and kneading them together with your fingers until it’s even in color. Once it’s kneaded, you mold it into shape with your fingers or the same kind of craft tools you would use on clay or plasticene. When it hardens, after about a half hour, it’s like rock–you can pound it with a hammer with no apparent effect. I’ve used it to make handles for broken pocketknife blades, for fixing glasses (like this time), for temporary patches on water pipes, and for a variety of other repairs and odd tasks.

-- Clifton Royston 05/19/18

(Magic-Sculp epoxy clay was featured in Cool Tools on March 3, 2005 but is packaged in a much larger quantity, at a much higher price, for larger repairs and sculpting. -- KK — editors)

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