About
Kludge – An ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole.”
-Jackson Granholm
Datamation Magazine February 1962
There are as many sources for the word Kludge as there are jury-rigged mailboxes in the mobile home parks of America. Whether the source of the word is Gaelic, German, or Naval Acronym, we know them when we see them, and on this web site, we celebrate these iconic images of mankind’s eternal struggle to hammer square pegs into round holes (with duct tape.)
FAQ
What’s this kludge thing all about?
Anytime anyone anywhere has used duct tape, zip-ties and bubble gum to hold something together with just enough tensile strength to not instantly kill everyone in the room…that’s a kludge. Whether it was to get your first car, which was older than you, to last another month or simply to avoid having to buy new headphones, almost everyone has kludged something. We just encourage taking photos for e-fame.
Aren’t some of these dangerous?
Our lawyers have told us not to answer this question.
I found The Best Kludge Ever, what do I do?
Send it in here! Or email it to thereifixedit@gmail.com. The best of the worst and anything else we find amusing ends up on our voting page where the Fixer community mercilessly decides which ones are funny enough to make it to the home page. Abandon all butt hurt, ye who enter here.
Why didn’t my most epic photo make it to the main page? You people have no taste.
Take it up with the Fixers. Be warned, they have duct tape and pitch forks. As soon as we cobble together a mind control device though, we’ll be sure to drop you an email.
Didn’t you know the correct term is jerry-rig?
The community has spoken. Their word is law.
I really liked this post. Can I copy it to my site? Thank you in advance.
FYI, there are some interesting “repairs” in this same vein on the This Old House website, most of them found during home inspections. Subscribed to the feeed, and looking forward to seeing a lot more!
Yay – in the Uk the art of Kludge is known as bodging and invariably involves duct tape, garden wire or cable ties.
Staple guns can come in handy too.
thanks to the art of the kludge, in australia cable ties have become known as “Aussie bolts” due to thier use in holding almost every part of some cars together.
Back in the early nineties I worked at a magazine publisher as a production assistant—which meant I did any scut work that needed doing. Occasionally that included assembling comb-bound workbooks, the covers of which were heavy waxed stock, unmarked and unprinted. In order to make the book titles visible, rectangular cut-outs were punched from the front cover so the appropriate parts of the title pages would show through. The rather complex and potentially dangerous die-cutting machine that did the punching was built by the Kluge Company. I suspect that may be the source of the word we use today to describe complex and potentially dangerous mechanical solutions.
My friend maintains that the only things a toolbox requires are duct tape and WD40 – if it moves and it shouldn’t, duct tape, if should move and doesn’t, WD40.
OMG, this so brings back memories of my dad. Thanks for the laughs!
One problem though: your footer claims copyright, but none of the photos is actualy copyrighted by you and I highly doubt that more than 1% of all submited photos are actualy copyrighted by the respective uploader.
What you refer to as “kludge” we in polite Texas society refer to as “southern engineering”. A printing equipment technician I know refers to the practice as “field modifications”.
The Kluge die cutting machine referred to is pronounced “klu-gee”. I am in the printing business and have seen some of those vintage machines operate.
Pointer to Nikola, the copyright statement will be for the webpage. TOS on the page should denote more details.
I’ve never heard the word Kludge. I’m going to use it every chance I get.
But this site reminded me of my very resourceful mom who could “mickey-mouse”
any broken thing around our ranch.
popdopalopolis
I’m going to find out if my folks photographed the distaster that awaited them when we tore out a moldy old shower in our downstairs apartment. The houses previous owners had attached copper outflow pipes to plastic ones with lots of caulk (a big no no) and every time the upstairs kitchen sink was used it leaked into the downstairs wall. There was mold EVERYWHERE. We ended up tearing out the entire bathroom AND downstairs kitchen.
For lots of kludge look up a few housing inspectors. They see lots of scarey home “improvements”.
love this site
a couple years ago i saw a book at the store that i sadly did not buy and have never seen again, about the wacky ways people modify their environment to suit them. the title was something about ‘adaptability’ i think…
my grandad is said to have fixed nearly everything with green garden wire and a never ending supply of stickers (nobody knows how he got to have so many of them and where).
my girlfriend usually in situations of utter desperation suggests construction/insulation foam.
when i worked in the UK i and my german co-volunteer, we regularly were quite desperate, because stuff like dowels (wall plugs) and such didnt work like we were used to from german standards, so when it came down to it what usually sticked to as essential was: big hammer (’round 4kilo), WD40 (for getting stuff back into fluid motion), a good length of rope and wooden planks – u cant argue with a good sturdy chunk’o'wood! =)
AHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
I am so printing that and putting it on my desk at work!!!
Great website! I loved the Benz fix. If you’re ever in the DC area, please drop by the Blogger’s meetup (fun, I just realized I sound like a Russian spam bot, hehehe).
Jade
Love this site.
We call it bush mechanics in Australia. I don’t have photos but I’ve had to do a fair bit of it myself – when a wheel shattered on a dirt road in central Queensland, the shrapnel cut the brake line so I had to put a screw from the CB antenna assembly into the metal bit of the line and cap it with the ragged rubber line-end to achieve enough brake pressure to get to town. No phone reception out there! Then we couldn’t get a replacement, so I got a place that made hydraulics for tractors and graders to make one for me. As thick as my thumb and ribbed for her pleasure, but it worked. Later, we bought a Kombi, and the accelerator stopped working on the NSW north coast – the floor had rusted out and the pedal hinge had come loose. Cable tied the end of the pedal and gaffed it to the steering column. Off we go! Better than sitting by the road in the heat, hoping someone will come along and save you.
Great Site. Love the photos and the comments. Keep ‘em coming.
“Duct tape is the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the world together” – quote from somewhere
I this is very appropriate for your site
Good job!
Duct tape forever!
Being half Mexican, my family and friends proudly refer to these innovative talents as “Mexican Ingenuity”, especially in reference to my (now deceased) grandpa, great uncle, and my creative resourcefulness (incidentally, I’m not yet deceased, but some of my projects could present opportunity for change of that status).
This site is the best laugh I’d had in a while (that is, if I include the nervous chuckles and groans of uncomfortable familiarity). I’m sorry I didn’t think of it first, but I’m glad you did!
“There is no ailment so great
That it cannot be fixed with a great amount of ale.”
-Six
When my windshield wiper lost a little plastic peg, which detached it, I made a length of natural fiber cordage from the inner bark of the dogbane plant and tied it through the hole. It worked fine and lasted a year.
This site is great. Pure genius. I feel the urge to fix things now. Gonna reblog some of your more dad-oriented fixes. Love the bottle holder fix. congrats.
@Ben
WD40 is just about the WORST thing you can use as lubricant (look it up)… your friend’s toolbox was only 1/2 right.
@Darcie
It’s from a t-shirt. Just sayin’.
This is the first time being on this site. what a hoot!
@Nikola
omg you’ve got to be kidding me…
You should call this site “The signs of the times”!
Finally somewhere i can be proud of the fact that i have saved my washine washine from certain doom with g-clamps and more recently, a bit of bostik. kludge-now i have a name for my bodging!
Hmm-fix stuff, yep, spell-check,no./\ this is not a pet name for my washing machine
The inhabitants of England’s more northerly cities, particularly Newcastle, are famed for their bodging skills.
The denizens of Newcastle do not understand the concept of screws, they refer to them as crinkle cut nails, hence the slang term “Geordie screwdriver”, meaning a hammer.
On top of the pictures and the other posts, reading yours made me LOL!
Love the site. Been checking back every few days.
I check here every morning to get ideas! I’m a handyman, so I’ve seen some funny kludges/bodges.
By the way, I prefer the term “Jerry-rigged,” the term given by Allied troops to German equipment “repairs” during WWII. As well as referring to an emergency repair, “jury-rigging” can also mean tampering with a jury to affect the outcome of a case.
Thank you for hosting my new favorite website!
Rest In Peace, John Barry; inventor of WD-40 (1924-2009)
-Greg in Seattle
I was going over a pass in the mountains several years ago when I slid on some ice and managed to completely mangle my vehicle on some rocks. I was alone it was getting dark and starting to snow and of course without cell phone service. Standing there watching my gas pour out I decided jerry-rigging was in order. Thanks to a 2 liter water bottle,liquid nails, dry wall tape and a good length of rope i managed to get my truck off the mountain.
The reference to your German coworker using a big hammer… my ex-husband was raised in a little Wisconsin US town that had a signigicant population of 2nd and 3rd generation German immigrants. They called forcing anything to work as “German engineering” meaning using a big hammer.
My Uncle is an amazing adaptive mechanic.
We were traveling I-80 in my 1972 Gran Torino in 1983 when the engine died and wouldn’t re-start.
In less than 30 minutes, Uncle Walt diagnosed a broken spring in the points in the distributor(remember those?) and fixed it by slicing a thin strip of rubber from the floormat , gappig the points close enough for us to get 15 miles down the road to where we could buy a points kit.
This website is filled with pictures from workers with all of my Uncle’s creativity, and a morsel of skill. I love it!
Duct Tape and WD-40 are wonderful tools. But with Cable ties, Velcro, and a Swiss army knife I’ve saved the day on many occasions…
Hello and welcome to the evening news.
-
Scientists have reported they have previously underestimated the amount of dark matter in the universe. They now calculate it exists in sufficient quantity to keep the universe in it’s current shape indefinitely.
-
Earlier today, record sales of black duct tape were announced. The company’s CEO has been quoted as saying “We’re selling a metric ass load of the stuff, it’s incredible. I’ve no idea what people are doing with the stuff. Although, the director in charge of sales tells me that silver duct tape sales are also starting to spike.”
-
And finally, NASA has released a statement saying preparation for their mission to repair the Hubble telescope and International Space Station, both damaged during a recent meteor shower, is going better than expected. The required parts are reportedly already almost loaded on to the shuttle, and the astronauts undertaking the work are receiving last minute briefings.
Great site! Give me more!
What happened to WD 1 through 39?
They trashed WD 1-39 and got it right on the 40th try.
Where have you been all my life? This site is a great inspiration to my garage logic.
@MarkEinIdaho
dont forget the baling twine, you can ‘fix’ a lot of things with that stuff
In Britain the expression is either a ‘lash-up’ or a ‘bodge-job’.
Don’t forget that, like The Force, duct tape has a dark side, a light side, and it holds and binds the universe togther.
Fans of Reginald Perrin will recall that when Reggie started his community he hired a Scot for a cook. This fellow spoke in an incomprehensible jibberish that included the frequent use of the word kludge. I didn’t get where I am today but not remembering silly trivia from British TV.
My friend of the wd40 and duct tape quote regularly uses the term ‘micro adjuster’ when referring to a hammer, particularly large hammers are called ‘precision fitting implements’
I love all the duct tape adds that show up on the right side of the page.
Great site! How about a “mail to” link for sharing a particular repair with a friend / enemy? kthxbai
tweaker project central!
gotta love it.
then again, sans any sarcasm whatsoever, what i REALLY love is yr sweeping bird, there.
Hiya – would love to add a bit of humour for our site visitors with a wrap to the vehicle based ‘fixes’ on your site – is there any way I can sort the content to acheive that or are you happy for us to use a few in a gallery or slideshow display on our site with a link back & credits to yours?
Regards, Joy
Awesome! Keep the ghetto spirit alive!
It would be even awesomer if each post came with some explanation. I’d love to know some of the story on these.
When my engineer dad introduced me to the word in the sixties, my spelling-bee winning brain spelled it kluge. As in
“The spelling ‘kluge’ (as opposed to “kludge”) was used in connection with computers as far back as the mid-1950s and, at that time, was used exclusively of *hardware* kluges.” — http://dictionary.die.net/kluge
Now, spell it however you want, but kludge rhymes with fudge and kluge rhymes with stooge (yeah, or spooge).
Since this entire site is devoted to hardware kluges, I’d like to suggest that you start a trend and use the correct speling.
Yeah, I did that on purpose.
YaY! That’s how I remember hearing the guys say it when they were repairing computer, in early 1970’s. ‘Puter was military surplus, had been hooked up to diesel exhaust and somehow infected with coral, being somewhere in the Pacific. (That can’t Possibly be right?!?)
I have what was a very nice fabric suit bag with many zippered pockets, made by “Kluge.” It was good until I started packing more stuff and checking the bag through. Wouldn’t fit into today’s limited carry-on spaces.
Kluging and breadboarding.
I absolutely loved these photos and the website until I saw that you accept photoshopped kludges. What made them so great was thinking people really did these things. Is there a way to indicate which photos are real and which are invented?
I really enjoy looking at your pictures, but you need to add a way that we can jump ahead to later pages. I looked at the first 10 pages, and then when I came back to your site later, I had to go through those 10 pages again to see new pictures.
After looking at the one titled “Testing the tensile strength of T-shirts” it seems to me another good category would be “Photos taken while driving a car” – seems like a kludge waiting to happen! Love the site, though am disillusioned to find some of the photos are photoshopped! Aren’t all photos real????
Just discovered this site via 1000 Awesome Things. Being a recovering Engineer I was instantly addicted to the wonderful world of “Hey honey! I fixed it!” again. My retired household will never be the same again.
Thanks (i think…)
Duct tape & kludge forever!
This is the best comic relief! Thank you for doing this.
How do I post a pic?
The expression is “jerry-rigged”, not “jury-rigged”. You’ve probably been told that already.
Baling Twine AKA welding rods holds most Aussie farms together. It’s uses are infinite @mkj
one of the best websites i have ever visited keep it up…….
Found your website in my wordpress stats links. One of hilarious website i’ve found over a long long time.
I’ve visited each and every of the pages. Cheers mate.
wonderful website!!! we really need the laughs in these times!
The ‘kludge’ has long had a history in the United States Army, politely referred to as GI Ingenuity. Nowadays vehicles come with a Battle Damage Assessment Repair kit (BDAR, pronounced bee-dar), which makes it sound like something complex and technical. However, it actually consists of a pack of zip ties and a giant roll of duct tape (100MPH tape as we call it) among a few other things. The term BDAR has even become a verb in common usage, i.e. “Let’s hurry up and just BDAR this thing and get back on the road…”
This website could be populated by exploits from almost my entire family…Human ingenuity at its best! Also thought I’d share the following, an old favorite sent along by an old friend:
Qantas Airlines: Repair Division
After every flight, Qantas pilots fill out a form, called a ‘Gripe Sheet’ which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the Gripe Sheets before the next flight. Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humour…
Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by Qantas’ Pilots (marked with a P) and the Solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers.
Qantas is the only major airline that has never, ever, had an accident.
P: Left inside main tyre almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tyre.
P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.
P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.
P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.
P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.
P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.
P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.
P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That’s what friction locks are for.
P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.
P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you’re right.
P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.
P: Aircraft handles funny………..
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.
P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.
P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.
And the best one for last………………
P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget.
Wow! Most of these fixes could have been done by my Mom, who grew up in the ‘make do’ years of WWII. Her repair kit consists of a big rubber mallet and a pack of gum. Usually she just intimidates things into working better, including her kids!
BTW, she was an aircraft mechanic in the Navy, during the 50s. I will definitely send her the link to this site!
Great site! In the same spirit, TV has given us “MacGyver” and the phrase “MacGyvering” something. Dick Cepek, offroad explorer and supplier, was the first one I heard using the “Mexican Engineering” term, from his many travels in Baja. All synonymous with the terrific pictures displayed here and the spirit of Man as a tool-using (well, duct-tape using) animal! Long live Qantas Repair Division!
I can’t believe you haven’t corrected “jury-rig” to “jerry-rig”.
I like learning all these other terms for jury-rigged and jerry-built repairs and contraptions!
@mog
FAIL
He had been chosen by the Father to be the sacrificial lamb — to atone for the sins of mankind. ,
I once locked my keys (and bag) in my car, and facing the prospect of going to class with not so much as a pencil, decided there was nothing I could do but break in. No coat hangers were available, nor anything of the sort, to jimmy my way in. After minutes of agonising over the situation, checking trash cans and wondering whom I could call, it struck me that my car was already equipped with a flexible metal rod ready for the taking—and besides, the antenna wasn’t even connected to the stereo inside.
That’s right: I broke the radio antenna off of my car. I broke it off, fashioned it into a crude hook, inserted it between the door and the frame and hooked it around the lock nib, carefully working it into place so’s to get a firm grip, and with a triumphant pull I was reunited with my stuff.
Turns out the instructor was late too.
This website is freaking hilarious. Good job. Good job.
A friend of mine showed me a blower they had rigged to blow grain and stuff to bait bird fields to hunt in. As he described it he mentioned a part and pointed to the duct tape holding it in place. He said,”That thing kept moving and shaking until I put some “Alabama Chrome” on it, it don’t move no more”.
Alabama Chrome……I laughed til I hurt, and the other two guys there laughed too, as none of us had ever heard it called Alabama Chrome….and your site is loaded with it. Who woulda thought people would have taken the Dept. of Homeland Security so serious…….
Just found this site today, but will be back….it is too funny!!!!
Please fix the jury-rigs tag on your banner, that’s not what you mean as has been pointed out before.
Should we send it to Failblog?
Jury-rigged is not exactly, but nearly, a synonym for jerry-built. There is no such thing as a jerry-rig. WD-40 works fine as a lubricant for a short time until you get back to civilization. I LOVE THIS SITE!
Funny how many people are thinking that Jury-Rig is wrong and should be a fail for not pulling it down or changing it. It is Jury-Rig… Jerry-Rig is a spin off. Jury-Rig is quite correct people and exactly what is meant here!
Webster’s Collegiate 5th edition
jury as noun: Nautical, for temporary use, usually in an emergency, as a ‘jury mast’
jury-rigged, adj., naut, rigged for temporary use
My favorite to use is baleing twine. There has been times I think my barn would have fallen apart without it. But my most memorable use of it was when the windshield wiper motor in my truck went out it was pouring rain and I had an get to my friend house who was going to put the new motor in. I tied one piece to each wiperblade and pulled one through the passanger window and one through the driver window and tied them together inside. I then drive down a 55mph hwy pulling the twine back and forth to make the wipers work.
LOVE this site! If I’d know it existed, I would have taken a picture of the guy hanging out of the drivers side of his car, in the pouring rain, wiping a squeegee back and forth. In the fast lane. All hail duct tape, zip ties, hammers and WD-40.
Here in argentina when the windshield wipers are not working we cut a half potato and rub with the wet side the windshield and the water slides down,some of nasty guys use to pee on the windshield and they say that works too(i will try next rain)LOL
Guys, you NEED an iPhone App! We can submit on the go!
I love you site with an exception. Can you pretty pretty please change your navigation so that you can go to the oldest page, or jump back multiple pages at a time?
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
Stop using the expression “jury rigged”!!!! It is a misnomer. The correct expression is “Jerry-rigged” The expression started when the Germans (Jerries)ran out of money and supplies during WW II and had to use anything they could get their hands on to fix or repair their vehicles. So it was adapted to describe anything that was rigged using cheap means. Over the years it has been morphed into “jury rigged”. Now a rigged jury is a whole ‘nother topic. A jury has nothing to do with something bodged together.
To skip pages you’ve seen when you come back to this site:
Go to the first page of pictures. The last part the address is a number. (On the first page, it is a 1) Type a different number. It will send you to that page.
You can even kludge a navigation button.
Epoxy cures all!!
Sorry! The first page of pictures is the home page. You have to click on ‘Older Entries’ once. The second page has a 2 in the address. That can be replaced with another number.
Tsk, tsk, John, Mog and the rest of you who haven’t done their Googling re: “jury” vs. “jerry.” There are TWO expressions out there and they mean about the same thing, “Jerry built” (not rigged!) indeed derives from German scavengers in WWII. But as any serious sailor will know, the term “jury rigged” is much older, originating in the days of sailing ships that sometimes required extensive, improvised repairs at sea:
Wikipedia sez:
The phrase “jury rigged” has been in use since at least 1788.[1] However, the adjectival use of “jury” in the sense of makeshift or temporary dates from at least 1616, when it appeared in John Smith’s A Description of New England.[1] It appeared again, in a similar passage, in Smith’s more extensive The General History of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles published in 1624.[2][3]
There are several theories about the origin of this usage of “jury”:
From the Latin adjutare (“to aid”) via Old French ajurie (“help or relief”).[4]
Contraction in the nautical tradition for injury
I thought someone would have posted as you did, (and as I did months later — sorry.)
Anyone who has read enough novels will have come across a jury-rigged mast, created of necessity after a bad storm.
Whatever “jury rig” used to mean in 1788, it no longer means that. Common usage of “jury rig” refers to the legal term, as in rigging a jury. And f “jerry rig” or “gerry rig” is more commonly used than “jerry built” and semantically more correct because Germans would never build crap like that in the first place – they had to RIG it, adjust it, fix it.
So I still go with “jerry rig”.
Actually, the reader who suspects that the Kluge name is the source for “kludge” groped a bit too far in the darkness. The name is pronounced “kloo-gee” while the verb form rhymes with “fudge.”
LOVE this site.
Great suggestions for fixing things on the job.
Oh yeah.
I love your site – it gives me chuckles every single day – thanks!
What the Hell does it take to get your pics posted? Tried twice. I give up.
why can you not jump from one page to another on this site? you can only go to the next page
need more pics per page and a category system
I love your site, but your (new?) ad system is seriously interfering with my ability to open your pages! This was not true before. Most of the areas I try to navigate to, I get to the ad, not the page, and then my computer hangs up. Permanently. I have to close the page. Perhaps this is my “economy” level internet connection, but I did want to let you know that whatever change was made, it is blocking viewership.
You guys need a Facebook page.
In some professions it is always a good idea to practice political correctness, therefore I use the term “economically altered”.
I would like to see ping.fm added as an option. It would allow me to send a photo link to twitter, facebook, plurk, linkedin, etc, with just one click.
FUNNNNNYYYYYY!!!!!
When’s the funeral?
Great site from an also-recovering engineer! I first heard this term in the early ’70’s, pronounced “klooge”, referring to a mistake, of sorts. Supposedly, a machinist had to take the ferry to work. If he made an out-of-spec part, he wound up taking it home with him. On the way home, he’d go to the rail and drop it overboard. “Kluge” was the sound it made as it penetrated the water. I’m sure that was a humorous story meant to play off the meaning, rather than to be a definition.