07 December 2007

Stupid Christmas Season Mail Order Products. Part 2

Tonight's product is a Billy Mays joint called Mighty Putty. You can watch Billy do his infomercial thing on the web page. $20 plus $9 shipping.

The product itself isn't the usual craptastic fare you see in these ads, it is actually a neat product. It is basically an epoxy putty.

If you know anything about epoxy you know how awesome the stuff is. You have a compound that, by itself, is uninteresting. But, when you add a specific catalyst to the compound, you get a reaction leading to a new compound that can be ridiculously strong. Think of it kind of like cement. Dry Portland cement is just a useless powder, but add water to it and you have an amazing construction tool. Similarly, epoxies are used throughout industry as adhesives, coatings, fillers and so forth.

So, the problem with Mighty Putty isn't that it is a stupid product, it's that it is a product pitched to do things that, while possible, aren't necessarily appropriate. One suggested use is as a filler on a broken tile. Well, yeah, it will fill the missing tile piece, and it will be strong as hell, but your floor will look like a beat up car patched up with Bondo. You're really better off replacing the entire tile with a new one that won't look like ass.

Another suggested use is as a replacement for the missing portion of a cup handle. They tout it by saying you can 'mold it to any shape.' That's true, as that is the basic nature of a putty, but again we have an aesthetic problem. Your coffee cup is a Bondo masterpiece. Great. Why not just get a new coffee cup? They are made of fired clay, and are cheap. Oh and they don't look stupid. And of course we have no idea how the putty handles being washed, and we don't know if there is a possible health risk being used on a food container. I'll just get a new cup, thanks.

Still another suggestion is using the putty as an adhesive for shelving. While the stuff is certainly adequate as an adhesive, you can get a box of literally hundreds of perfectly adequate screws for less money that will do the same job. If you just need adhesive, there are also other options available that might be better, cleaner, cheaper and easier to use. Various Liquid Nails products, for instance.

They show the putty being used for various pipe leak fixes, which is really not a bad use of the product either. The problem there is that it is an ugly fix. As a stop-gap measure in an emergency, it'd be fine. But in the long run, you'd want to have a more professional fix done. Think about a home inspector seeing the sink drain putty fix they picture. Not good. They're gonna tell you to have it fixed right before you sell.

So, yeah, it'll do everything advertised, but in most cases, why would you want to? The real kicker here is that you can get essentially the same exact product from Lowes - Oatey Epoxy Putty - for under $5. If you honestly think you'll ever need something like this, just go to the hardware store and save yourself $25.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I agree with the stupidity of Billy
Mays uses(him not the actual fix)however, it is a wonderful thing to have for emergencies! The only fix I saw on the commercial that was a practical and well executed fix, was the broken rung on an otherwise perfectly good chair! Use the putty sand paint! And heres
a tidbit of info,CVS pharmacy sells
TV prods. below their price, and WITHOUT s/h costs! Same 6 tubes at CVS is $10.!!! Now, thats a bargain!