DIY: Silly Putty

How To Make Silly Putty

We all have our lab experiences in school and I want to share one of the experiments we made. It’s called Silly Putty. Actually, we performed a lot of experiments, but this one stood out for me because it can be used to entertain people, especially kids, like me, even the main purpose of making this is to learn about the polymers and the cross linking and the physical changes and the molecular motion and the intermolecular bond strength and whatever is related. Those learnings really matter but I was just amazed and I can’t believe that a simple glue can be formed into a silly toy. It is noted for its unusual characteristics. It bounces, but breaks when given a sharp blow. It can also float in a liquid and will form a puddle given enough time.

The materials are just simple and can be found inside our houses. You don’t have to buy them. In our worksheet of procedures, the materials needed were 55% Elmer’s glue solution in water and Borax. But I found out that there are alternatives for Borax like liquid soap, powder or laundry detergent. You can also use food coloring to turn your silly putty into your desired color.

Follow these instructions to make your silly putty.

1. Pour 40 mL of Elmer’s glue solution into a cup.

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2. Add 17 mL of Borax or its alternatives to the cup.

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3. Add the food coloring into the mixture

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4. Stir the solutions until the desired consistency is reached.

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5. Knead the stirred solution in the hands.

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6. You can now play with your silly putty.

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For the blue one, I used laundry detergent, powder for the white one, borax for the green one and liquid soap for the red one, which is unfinished.