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Cool Idea of the Day: Shoelace re-tipper
I actually formed this idea earlier while I was writing a post about television infomercials, and it struck me as so brilliant (yes, I am modest) that I felt it was deserving of its own post.
Even back in high school, my friends and I had the problem of the little plastic things at the tips of shoelaces always falling apart, leaving the shoelace tips with nothing to protect them against the elements and eventual fraying. This was such a problem that back in middle school, Jeremy Hays included it as a part of an ad-hoc comedy routine he told while we were “running” the mile once a week in PE (our run was more like a leisurely stroll). To this day, it holds a space in my brain that should probably be devoted to remembering what appointment I have at any given time. So Hays, you get a co-author credit on this post.
At any rate, the shoelace fraying becomes a major problem when you have to relace your shoes. And in my case, that’s almost every day. I don’t know how it happens, but I’ll lace my shoes, have both ends of the laces equal length, tie them, and then a few days later one side is magically three times as long as the other. Meaning it has to be relaced. Does this happen to everyone, or am I doing something wrong? People do say I tie my shoes weirdly. I probably flunked shoe-tying back in kindergarten.
I’m starting to ramble. Anyway, the relacing is a pain in the neck because of the lack of the plastic things on the end of the shoelaces. Now, all you smarty-pants out there will probably say to just buy new shoelaces. This invokes two problems:
1) I am cheap.
2) I can never find shoelaces that match the style of my shoes.
I liked my OLD shoelaces just fine, thank you, minus the part about the tips being frayed from here to next Tuesday.
This brings me (finally) to the actual topic of the post: my cool idea. And that cool idea is a shoelace tip re-plasticker. I think glue or wax or something would do, really, rather than an actual plastic polymer. You make this little machine that looks kind of like a miniature waffle iron, plug it in, stick your shoelace tip in there, press down, hit a button, and voila, the heated glue or wax or whatever is put around the shoelace tip, giving you a nice fresh plastic tip. I bet someone could make something like that pretty cheap, and you’d only have to buy new shoelaces on the rare occasion that they break.
Someone out there get on that, and we’ll split the revenue.
Mon January 16th, 2006 4:17 pm
8 comments
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I think those plastic tips on shoelaces are called “aglets” . . . something like that.
Maybe you should get some, ah, leather laces. Or velcro.
We could advertise it on an infomercial late at night. “Tired of struggling with frayed, torn, hard to lace shoes? Embarassed at cocktail parties by unsightly shoelaces? Well, never struggle again with (star wipe) Hot Tip, the revolutionary shoelace repair tool from Ronco!”
I hardly ever tie/untie my shoes, so my laces stay pretty even. I just pry them on and off.
How do you make TM symbol? I’d like one after Hot Tip (TM).
I have several ideas for this product. I’ll email you.
Not to rain on your parade- or rather, fray on your laces- but glue or wax might not work so well. They tend to soak right into anything porous, so would probably just make the lace stiff or crusty, rather than plasticky-coated. however! if it involved some kind of little heat-sealer jobby with “aglet” refills, you could have happylaces forever more.
Of course, then what else could you stick in there that might be fun to aglet-ify? Hrmmm…..
Kaitlin: Velcro doesn’t hold well enough for sports. My ankle would break within minutes. Leather laces sound expensive! And aglets… that sounds fimiliar, as weird a word as it is. Isn’t that a baby eagle? Or is that an egret…
Mike: Good plan! But we’re not calling our company Ronco. I’m the same way with my regular shoes, as far as tying goes, but with sporting shoes, you have to have that nice snug grip or else I’ll break my ankles (see response to Kaitlin). Try ™ to make a trademark. I think this software does it for you automagically.
Annie: Thanks for stopping in! This is your first comment, yes? I’m glad to hear from you, whoever you are. You seem to know more about wax and glue than me. Did you eat glue as a kid? The aglet refill idea sounds good, though. We can include 20 in our package, and sell refills. But if you saturated through the lace with the wax/glue, wouldn’t you then have a crusty outside? I’ll defer to you though, you’re the expert. As far as other uses, I bet you could put agrets on clumps of hair, and braid your hair that way. We’d start a new fashion trend!
Being an engineer and around both a lab and a pair of shoes with freyed laces, I’ve solved this problem before.
4 things you need:
Heat gun (glorfied blow-dryer) heatshrink tubing (gauged on type of laces, natch) Cyanoacrylate adhesive (SooperGloo) Patience
Slide the shrinkwrap over the lace, nuke it with the gun. Using a pair of sharp scissors, square the end of the lace. Apply the adhesive to the open end of the tubing (wicks into the fibers and sets nicely). Enjoy your rejuvenated laces.
You could mechanize that in no time, man. Go ahead and use this method to make millions — you just have to put my picture on the box.
i think the shoe lace companies should meatal tip all the shoe laces then they don’t come off
You know if you just burn the tip of the shoelace with a lighter all the chemicals will melt and then harden so the shoe lace wont fray.
No special thing needed.
Blake, really? I’m going to give that a shot next time my laces fray. And that will almost definitely be soon…