Quick Fix - How to Repair a Shoelace in 3 Minutes (Using Heatshrink Tubing)
I recently bought a pair of shoes 2nd hand as the price was right and they fit perfectly. Before wearing them, I put them in my washing machine; if you put shoes inside a tote bag, in the middle of a full washing machine, you can wash them without issue. As for the laces, I removed them and put them in a sock each. One was fine, the other escaped and kept clacking against the door. Luckily the washing machine was fine (as it could have been sucked past the door seal and in to the mechanics) but the lace was damaged hence this blog post.
I'd used heatshrink tubing before with great results thus it came straight to mind. The premise is you find a piece that's a little larger than the lace and then another, slightly larger piece. Cut them to the same length as the original aglet and slide them on over the good side. If the internal string inside the lace isn't damaged then slide it on, shrink it down, slide the next piece over, shrink that too and you're away. All that remains to do is to burn the exposed end with a lighter so it doesn't fray and your lace is repaired.
My job was slightly tougher because the internal string had partially come out. I had to pinch along the lace using my fingers until I found where the void started. I used wire cutters to cut the bad piece off and the process was then the same as above. I didn't need to modify the other lace as my chopped down one was practically the same size. Perhaps the other one was stretched or they were different lengths from the factory.
Either way, re-lacing the shoes was a breeze and they're holding up fine so far. Ironically, if I'd been lazy and left the laces installed when I washed them, I could have saved this work! Still, it doesn't even take 5 minutes and it's nice to make use of the tools; every repair done, no matter how simple, improves the value of your tools.
Thank you for reading. As usual, the accompanying YouTube video is linked below:
(Repair Wins Blog - Post #4)
(June 2026)
