Surprising fix for frayed shoe laces - electrician's heat shrink tube!

Forget about fumbling with sticky tape to try to repair frayed shoelace ends, here's a great solution using electrician's heat-shrink tubing and just a domestic iron - soldering iron or fancy tools not needed. Search 'heat shrink tubing' online or pop to your local hardware store or electrical shop.

[@bc1406]

Job done. Thank you

[@paterpracticus]

Excellent! Glad you found it useful.

[@NonLegitNation2]

I just bought some yesterday, but I have a problem. Most of my shoelaces are the flat style and I cut them to shorten them. How do I pull the lace through the shrink tube? Also for anyone wondering what diameter to get, go with 4.5mm which has a 2:1 shrink ratio which means 4.5mm shrinks down to 2.25mm. I measured the lace tips on my existing tipped laces and the diameter of all of them is 2.25-2.5mm. Also when using shrink tubing it's best to use a lighter to shrink it, that way you'll get the best tightening of the tube. The rubber/plastic used in the shrink tube is designed not to melt so using a lighter is completely fine. But definitely be careful not to melt the shoelace below the tubing.

[@paterpracticus]

I hadn’t thought about flat laces. Perhaps you could tightly bind the ends with cotton first, then put the heat shrink over. Also thanks for the stats on shrinkage.

[@mattycdale]

@@paterpracticus grab the end with tweezers, and then pull the heat shrink over the tweezers and lace, then release the tweezers once through, that should do it

[@paterpracticus]

@@mattycdale great idea!

[@blazorb5907]

Interesting, where do i get those plastic things for the laces lol

[@paterpracticus]

You can get the heat shrink from an electrical shop, or search 'heat shrink tubing' on Amazon or eBay. You'll need to get an appropriate size for your laces, or an assortment.