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How to Fix a Slinky

Anyone with a small child has experienced the frustration of a twisted slinky. Frustration, however, often leads to a stretched out, unusable toy. Fixing a twisted slinky doesn't need to be frustrating, though, because it is actually very easy to do. It just takes a few patient moments to untwist a slinky, which is better than having to explain to a crying child why his toy is destroyed.

Instructions

- 1
  Place your four left-hand fingers inside one end of the slinky and place your left thumb on the top, outside of the coils.
- 2
  Stretch the slinky out slightly until you see the backwards coil. It is usually easy to detect since one coil will be sticking out a little further than the rest of them. When you stretch the slinky out, the backwards coil will look like an upside-down "U."
- 3
  Grab all coils up to the backwards coil in your left hand and hold firmly.
- 4
  Hold the slinky from the other end with your right thumb on the top, inside of the coils.
- 5
  Turn your wrists in opposite directions until your left thumb is on the bottom, outside of the coils.
- 6
  Include the newly twisted coil with the other coils in your left hand by grabbing it with your left thumb and fingers and removing your right hand.
- 7
  Continue twisting the coils this way until you have reached the right end of the slinky and all coils are twisting in the same direction.

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