You don’t need to throw away or replace a DVD just because it’s scratched up. With some careful rehab, you can get the disc back into playing shape.
The Daily Buzz recommends using creamy peanut butter and toothpaste to smooth out scratches.
You start by smoothing toothpaste over the disc, then layering a coat of peanut butter on top of that. Next, you wipe off the substances, leaving the remaining gunk to fill in the scratches.
After that, you apply a second coat of toothpaste and peanut butter, then place the disc in a container and pour soda and baking soda inside. After shaking it up and letting the disc sit for a while, you polish off the next layer of paste with a wet paper towel and your scratches should be gone.
Here’s a Household Hacker video to follow along:
If that’s not your style, you can always use toothpaste, a banana and metal polish to do the trick.
25 (more) clever ideas to make life easier [The Daily Buzz]
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Wow…I may just try that with my Kinect Adventures game and see if I can get it working again
Screw that, donate all your beat CDs to this guy.
Then you toss the DVD on an ant hill, and let the ants clean off the peanut butter. Viola!
Is Phil a real person or a Lifehacker RSS feed bot?
Smooth or Crunchy? Also, what kind of peanut butter?
Wow, did you seriously not read even the second paragraph?
Wow, did you seriously think they were serious?
Seriously.
There are not enough o’s on my keyboard to express the amount of Woooosh that you deserve.
Wouldn’t an automobile headlight lens buff kit work better?
That’s what I use. Works great.
Although, peanut butter toothpaste…
OMG, I read the title and thought…hell yeah, Peanutbutter Toothpaste….bout freaking time they came out with a flavor other than bacon!
I’d buy it, definitely. Supposing it actually tasted like peanut butter, of course…
Buy the goop that fixes them, only costs about $6. And if you have an enterprising soul, offer to fix co-workers scrached disks for $1 each….you’ll make your costs back plus.
At first, I thought it said “peanut butter toothpaste” but alas, no.
This ridiculous process reminds me of the following Simpsons quote:
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn’t that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we’re overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They’ll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren’t the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we’re prepared for that. We’ve lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we’re stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that’s the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Welcome to 2001, where this information was already old.
Well I’ve certainly learned something here. Who knew there was such a demand for peanut butter flavored toothpaste?
Toothpaste for dogs is sometimes peanut butter flavored. It’s not fair that dogs get all the cool stuff.
Then you put them in the fish tank, and remove them after the fish have eaten the residue off them and died, and after that you dry them off on the roof and then when they’re dry, you put them in the player and voila! you’ve just broken your player!
lol
I was so excited, than let down.
I thought someone had invented peanut-butter toothpaste.
I just use peanut butter. That works right? I mean I brush for a really long time then I use Kool-Aid to rinse.
Discs? What are those?
/not the same guy who brags about not owning a TV
Or more simply, you could just be careful with your CDs like (got he’s an old fart, don’t
listen to him) we use to be careful with vinyl LPs. Don’t drop ‘em, scratch ‘em, sit on ‘em
use them as coasters for glasses of booze or cans or bottles of beer, don’t let your pet
walk on them…..you know the drill.
Oh heck, vinyl records are durable compared to whatever the old 78 RPM records used to be made of. Drop one on the floor, and it would shatter like glass.
Some of the ones in my father’s collection predated electronic recording – you had to shout into a speaker horn to be recorded. I’ve no idea what’s become of those records now.
Shellac. Made from the shells of beetles, no kidding.
Try lemon Pledge! (short term use only)
I prefer boiling them. I realize that sounds like an awful idea, but it actually works quite well. Get about 2-3″ of water boiling in a pot, then lower the disc into the water for 8 seconds or so with some tongs. Don’t let it touch the bottom for obvious reasons. Remove from the water and voila, the disc works again (dry it first, please). I’ve done this on several occasions with a 100% success rate.
Don’t have peanut butter, but will Nutella work?
Nommm… (sounds of CD being chewed)
Why can’t you use crunchy peanut butter?
And why does it have to be peanut butter? What about Apple Butter?
Is it wrong to admit that the only reason I clicked on this story was to see how badly the Consumerist hive mind would rip Phil?
Uhm..You mean like a burned movie or a cd? Yeah I guess, but its probably easier to just make another copy. Blanks are what, like 50 for $8? Can’t remember the last time I bought an actual movie dvd, I don’t believe in funding things like SOPA or frivolous lawsuits.
Oh, its just phil again..Nevermind.
I live next to a mom-and-pop videogame shop. They own a couple of commercial disc fixers, and charge $4 a pop. They actually work, too. They have saved a few games my Xbox killed. (Defective DVD drive)
Toothpaste and peanut butter *might* work, but there’s an even better chance it’ll just make your problem worse. I wouldn’t risk it.
I live next to a mom-and-pop videogame shop. They own a couple of commercial disc fixers, and charge $4 a pop to run your discs through them. They actually work, too. They have saved a few games my Xbox killed. (Defective DVD drive)
Toothpaste and peanut butter *might* work, but there’s an even better chance it’ll just make your problem worse. I wouldn’t risk it.
The underside of a dvd is actually just a protective plastic (polycarb or acrylic). The actual “image” is on the underside of the top label. If you scratch a dvd on the underside plastic surface, the cure is simply to polish the scratch so that the laser light can shine through it. If the top layer is scratched deep enough into the “image”, there is no repair possible. To repair my scratched discs i used to use micro-mesh, a plastic restoration kit that contains a pumice liquid and a series of fine (1500-6000 grit) abrasion cloths to remove the scratches. Now, when i am in a hurry, i simply look around for anything that will polish the scratches out, it doesn’t have to be as arcane as rubbing on peanut butter and setting the disc in pepsi.
Don’t throw your shit around or leave it out in the first place, problem solved
Toothpaste is to harsh and abrasive. Not sure what good peanut butter is, except it’s greasy.
I just use a fine metal polish and polish gently. Never had this fail unless the disk was scratched on the label side (which nothing will fix). The fix takes less than 60 seconds.
Actually, straight toothpaste will do it 90% of the time. Just smear it on the DVD, rinse it off with warm water, air-dry it (or a hair dryer on cool setting) or dab-dry with a T-shirt. No need for all those other steps most of the time.
Everything on the “Household Hacker” site is fake. It’s a joke site.
Toothpaste IS a gentle abrasive, suitable for buffing out mild scratches on optical media.
The rest of the rigmarole is just a practical joke.