In time for holidays, Beacon Journal panel tries out assortment of promising gadgets and helpful gizmos. Should you buy them?: Let's put it to test

Nov 29, 2008 (The Akron Beacon Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- TGT | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- If everything we saw on television commercials were true, our lives would be a breeze. If only that were so. Two of my colleagues, consumer reporter Betty Lin-Fisher and food writer Lisa Abraham, and I set out to test the claims of some of the products touted on TV. Here's what we thought of them.

Fix It!

In one of his ubiquitous commercials, Billy Mays tells me -- loudly -- that Fix It! is the cure I need for all the little door-opening dings and shopping-cart scratches my car has endured.

Well, not exactly.

Fix It! repairs scratches to a car's clear coat only, not the paint. That's apparent on the packaging, but not on the commercial or the Web site where it's sold.

In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say the ad is craftily misleading. In it, Mays drags a pointed object across a car's surface, implying a deep scratch, and touts the product as "blending with any color for a perfect match."

That complaint aside, Fix It! isn't even that impressive at clear-coat repair. It's essentially a Magic-Marker-like pen filled with a resin product that you're supposed to swipe across the scratch to make it disappear. The resins cure with UV exposure from the sun.

When I tried it on my car, I couldn't get the liquid to flow easily, so I ended up daubing

the stuff onto the scratch. The result was an uneven finish that looks like I made the repair with clear nail polish. As Betty observed, "You have a bump where you used to have a scratch."

My friend Jerry Jakovcic, a Middleburg Heights resident who used to work in auto-body repair, wasn't surprised at my result. While he said it's possible to buff out very shallow scratches with readily available rubbing compound, he insisted that no do-it-yourself product will fix deeper gouges satisfactorily.

We had to order Fix It! online, because it's not available in stores. The package I ordered from BuyFixIt.com came with a bottle of rubbing compound and a battery-operated buffing tool, in addition to the resin pen. The compound worked fine on a shallow scratch (although the tool was rather pointless), but I've since discovered it's no longer part of the package deal sold on the Web site. Instead, you now get two Fix-It! pens for the same price.

And about that Web site: I almost gave myself a repetitive strain injury from clicking "no" to all the extra items it tried to sell me. Be careful when you're navigating this marketing minefield, so you don't end up ordering something you didn't intend to.

Verdicts:

Betty: Skip It.

Lisa: Skip It.

Mary Beth: Skip It.

Over the Shoulder Organizer

I'm a big fan of big purses. The one I carry measures a substantial 201/2 inches wide and 12 inches tall. Without it, I couldn't possibly tote around such essentials as a photo album, a reporter's notebook, a pair of reading glasses, a tape measure and headphones for my MP3 player.

Oh, and some Advil for my strained back.

So who better to test the claim of Buxton's Over the Shoulder Organizer that it can "hold almost anything"?

I started by trying to fit everything from my oversize bag into the more compact organizer. That may seem like an unfair test, but after all, the picture on the box indicates you can fit in an extensive array of belongings that includes a folding umbrella, a hairbrush and a chunky datebook. Hey, even I don't carry an umbrella. Usually.

I managed to cram everything in, but barely. The bag bulged so much that I couldn't come close to closing it.

I fared better when I pared the contents to what would fit into Betty's more reasonably sized purse. Still, I had some complaints. None of the organizer's compartments was very spacious, and there were so many that I found it hard to search them all for a single item. In fact, after I'd emptied the purse and checked through it twice, Betty found my keys in one of the pockets.

In its favor, the organizer is made of leather, it's lightweight and reasonably priced, and it seems sturdily constructed. But Lisa was the first to voice our biggest objection: "It's ugly."

All of us could imagine the bag being useful for a traveler who's selective about what she carries and is more concerned with utility than looks.

Verdicts:

Betty: It Depends.

Lisa: Snap It Up.

Mary Beth: It Depends.

Mighty Putty

You have to credit the marketing brains that promote an ordinary product like it's some kind of miracle. That's the case with Mighty Putty, which is just two-part epoxy, a bonding material you can get at a hardware store.

Granted, epoxy's great stuff, and Mighty Putty is no different. We used it to reattach a plastic garden urn that had broken off its base, fill in a chip on the edge of the urn, affix a broken mug handle and stick a couple of wood scraps together, just to see whether the stuff would hold. We didn't want to puncture a water pipe just to test Mighty Putty's ability to stop a leak, so we'll have to take the company's word on that.

The putty was drier and grainer than I would have liked, not smooth like molding clay. It smelled like perm solution, though not quite as pungent. And we found it puzzling that the package came with only one plastic glove to wear when you're kneading the two parts of the epoxy together.

But in every case, Mighty Putty formed a strong bond. It wasn't especially difficult to sand, either.

Still, Betty was unimpressed. "I haven't seen it do anything mighty," she said.

We paid $9.99 for a package of Mighty Putty, which contains three 2-ounce tubes. That makes it a bit more expensive per ounce than a similar epoxy we found on the Lowe's Web site, priced at $5.98 for 4 ounces. But the price difference wasn't enough to trouble me.

Verdicts:

Betty: It Depends.

Lisa: Snap It Up.

Mary Beth: Snap It Up.

Mighty Mendit

Like Mighty Putty, Mighty Mendit is another beneficiary of creative marketing. The commercials insist it's a "flexible bonding agent," not a glue. But as far as I can tell, it's no different from the fabric glue that's been sold at fabric and craft stores for years.

Mighty Mendit is supposed to bond just about any kind of fabric and even leather. We tried it on a few types of fabric -- cotton, cotton-polyester jersey and denim -- and it held fine at first. When we washed and dried those items according to the laundering instructions, however, the bonds either loosened on their own or pulled apart with very little effort.

And as Lisa pointed out, those laundering instructions are very restrictive. Anything repaired with Mighty Mendit is supposed to be washed only on the delicate cycle or hand-washed, and it must be dried without heat. Dry cleaning is out, so forget using it on things like window coverings or slipcovers that are dry-clean-only.

We also tried the product on a leather purse strap and a vinyl belt, with better results. Both repairs held in the short term, but the bond on the purse seemed tenuous.

Mighty Mendit's price was an issue, too. The kit we bought at Target contained one 6-ounce bottle for $9.99. I found a fabric glue with similar laundering instructions at Pat Catan's, priced at $2.77 for 4 ounces.

Verdicts:

Betty: Skip It.

Lisa: Skip It.

Mary Beth: Skip It.

Hercules Hook

Evidently a whole lot of people are scared of hammers and drills. Hence the appearance on the market in recent years of all kinds of wall hangers that can be installed without the use of tools.

One of those is the Hercules Hook, which claims to hold up to 40 pounds -- or up to 150, if you use multiple hooks -- without the need to attach it to a wall stud. Instead of relying on the gripping power of the wood in the stud, it uses leverage to help the hook hold the weight.

To install the J-shaped hook, you just poke it through the wall and turn it until it's in the proper position. We all found it easy to do in drywall. And while it made a slightly bigger hole than a small nail would, we agreed it wasn't big enough to be a problem.

We tested the strength of the Hercules Hook by hanging a bucket holding 20 pounds of fertilizer. More than a week later, it was still hanging.

Lisa was less pleased when she tried installing the hook on a plaster wall and paneling, however. The plaster chipped, and the paneling splintered. So it might be best to limit the Hercules Hook to drywall.

I'm not sure I'd use the hook to hang something that's going to be subjected to a lot of additional force, such as a shelf that you set things on repeatedly. But for items like pictures, it seems to work just fine.

Verdicts:

Betty: Snap It Up.

Lisa: It Depends.

Mary Beth: Snap It Up.

Prices vary. Online or TV orders may incur extra charges for delivery.

Have you seen an advertised product and wondered if it really lives up to its claims? You can suggest items to be reviewed by Lisa Abraham, Mary Beth Breckenridge and Betty Lin-Fisher by sending e-mail to labraham@thebeaconjournal. com or calling 330-996-3737, mbrecken@ thebeaconjournal. com or 330-996-3756, or blinfisher@ thebeaconjournal. com or 330-996-3724.

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