How To Untangle a Slinky

Updated: September 21, 2026

In my journey as a professional slinky performer and educator over the past 10 years (yes, that's a thing), I may have fixed more slinky tangles than anyone who has ever walked the face of the Earth. 

Allow me to clear up a couple common misconceptions:

No matter how impossibly knotted that slinky you're currently holding may appear, any tangle can be solved without causing any permanent damage. 

(If you have already caused permanent damage by impatiently yanking on it, well, that's another story.)

and...

Untangling a slinky can actually be incredibly easy and fast if you follow the correct techniques. When my HyperSpring gets tangled, I can usually untangle it in about 3-5 seconds. Sorry to flex on you.

3 Things to NEVER DO When You Get a Tangle

If you don't want your slinky to become permanently damaged, remember these 3 warnings. It is especially important to teach these 3 warnings to any bionic slinky-tangling machines, also known as... children. 

1. NEVER keep playing with it.

The sooner you stop playing with it, the easier it will be to untangle. Continuing to play with it will only make the tangle worse. As soon as you realize you have a tangle, STOP playing, and devote all mental resources to solving the tangle. 

2. NEVER try to untangle it without knowing what you're doing. 

Unless you're an actual genius, this inevitably ends up making the tangle worse. Luckily, you're already reading this and I'm about to teach you what to do. 

Most importantly...

3. NEVER just randomly pull on it and hope for the best. 

This usually happens in a last-ditched effort when the would-be untangler becomes hopelessly frustrated, panics, and thinks that maybe yanking on it will cause it to magically unravel like a ball of yarn. Alas, no.

This is how a simple tangle becomes a Gordian Knot that only a legendary hero can untangle. This is also how permanent damage can occur. 

If someone already did this to your poor defenseless slinky, worry not – I will teach you how to become that legendary hero. I cannot, however, guarantee that your tangle does not already contain any permanent damage.

If you followed all 3 of these warnings, you will have a fresh, virgin tangle that is extremely easy to fix in only a few seconds using The Spinning Method.

How to Untangle a Metal Slinky (vs. Plastic)

Special care must be taken when untangling a metal Slinky®, as opposed to a plastic slinky.

Basically, you must be careful not to stretch the coils very far, and the only method that will work in most cases is the Foolproof Method. This is for two reasons:

(Notice that I capitalized “Slinky” and added the registered trademark symbol ® to signify that I’m talking about the original Slinky® brand toy, as opposed to using the lowercase word “slinky” as a generic term for all toy springs.)

1. Low Elastic Limit

Metal cannot stretch as far as plastic can, while still returning to its original shape. In physics terms, metal has a much lower elastic limit than plastic (at least, when speaking of the types of metal and plastic that slinkies are made of). 

While there are off-brand metal toy springs that can take a little more stretch before permanently deforming, the original Slinky® brand Slinky® is the worst offender for this. The steel it is made of is quite delicate and will quickly become permanently bent, or kinked, when stretched even a moderate distance. 

And it is especially easy for this to happen while it is tangled, due to the coils being stuck together. It’s also worth noting that even the most basic springbending tricks will instantly cause permanent damage to a metal Slinky®.

If you’re sitting there with a very badly tangled metal Slinky®… I can teach you how to untangle it, but I’ve got to be honest: there is a high likelihood that it will never return to its original shape.

Sorry to crush your hopes of recovering your $3 investment, but the original metal Slinky® is not designed to last. It is designed to make a delightful slinkity sound, and then get permanently bent so you have to buy a new one.

Unlike most things, where metal is generally thought of as superior and longer-lasting, plastic is far superior when it comes to slinkies. Metal is rigid, which is great for a lot of things, but not for a thing whose whole purpose is to be as flexible as possible. 

This is not to say that all plastic slinkies are great, either. Cheap "dollar store" ones with very thin coils can also get permanently kinked very easily. 

However, a plastic one with thick enough coils, such as a HyperSpring, will have a high elastic limit, and be able to endure even the most brutal tangling and untangling without suffering any permanent damage.

2. The Safety Crimp

The ends of most metal Slinky®s are sealed together with a small metal crimp, to prevent you from stabbing out your eyeballs in frustration at your tangle.

Unfortunately, this also prevents us from sliding the tangle off of the end, which is how the easier untangling methods work. 

Thus, only the last method in this guide, the Foolproof Method, will work if the ends are sealed with this crimp.

Unless you take matters into your own hands and remove the safety crimp with a pair of pliers, at you and your family’s own risk of eye-stabbing peril. Then, all of the following methods will work. You have been warned.

Now, without further ado...

The Spinning Method

The Spinning Method is by FAR the easiest and fastest method to detangle a toy spring. 

It will work best on a fresh tangle that hasn't been made worse by some misguided individual randomly pulling on it. 

It will work best on nice thick coils, like those of The Original HyperSpring. Even children as young as 7 can learn to untangle their own HyperSprings using the Spinning Method. 

It will also untangle 2 slinkies that are stuck together. 

But again, it will not work on a metal Slinky® with the anti-stabbing crimp sealing the end.

It will also not work very well on slinkies that are shaped like a square, butterfly, or anything else that isn't a circle. 

The Spinning Method goes like this:

1. Grab the end that is furthest from the tangle in one hand.

2. Without moving your arm, start gently rotating your wrist in little counterclockwise circles.

Keep your eyes on the bottom of your slinky, and try to get it rotating in counterclockwise circles also. 

You want these circles to be horizontal. If you get the end spinning in vertical circles instead, you may make your tangle worse. 

You also want to get it spinning so that the slinky has a bend in the middle of it, kind of like a parentheses symbol: )

It will only spin like this at one specific speed, depending on the length of your slinky and how many coils you're holding. You will need to play around with your rotation speed a little bit in order to find the correct speed. Focus on rotating your wrist WITH your slinky, at the speed it naturally wants to rotate at. 

If it is spinning in circles, but in a straight line with no bend in the middle, you need to spin about twice as fast in order to create that bend in the middle. 

A common mistake here is moving the whole arm like you're stirring a giant cauldron, trying to cast a spell that will fix your slinky. No!

Keep your arm still, and only move your wrist in little counterclockwise circles. 

With luck, this will cause the tangle to migrate toward the end and slide off. 

If not, keep trying this for at least 30 seconds. 

Sometimes, the tangle will seem to change shape, or "walk" upwards and bump into your hand. This is good. 

Or, if you have a REALLY bad tangle... nothing will happen.

In either case, proceed to step 3. 

3. Do the same wrist rotation, but in clockwise circles.

Remember: don't move the arm, only the wrist. Get the bottom end spinning in circles, with a bend in the middle of it. 

Keep going until the tangle is gone, or for at least 30 seconds.

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 as needed.

You may sometimes need to switch spinning directions multiple times. 

Repeating steps 2 and 3 once or twice will cause most tangles to disappear (assuming no one randomly pulled on it and hoped for the best). 

5. If you end up with a small tangled clump right on the end, grab closer to the tangle and repeat the process. 

The closer to the tangle you grab, the faster you will need to spin. 

Alternatively, you can put more force into your spin, creating bigger circles.

Remember not to move your arm though - the spin should come entirely from your wrist.

Either of these options can create enough rotational force to force the tangle fully off the end. 

However, sometimes you may be left with a few of what I call loop-de-loops. 

A loop-de-loop is an inversion of the direction of the slinky's winding.

In other words, if you follow the path of the slinky in one direction, it will double back on itself before continuing forward.

To eliminate loop-de-loops, one option is to use the Spinning Method again, grabbing very close to the loop-de-loop. But is often easier to proceed to...

The Unwinding Method

This method will work on any tangle that you can stick your hand all the way through, from the end. It will not work on a metal Slinky® with the anti-stabbing crimp attached. 

1. Grab the end that is furthest from the tangle in your left hand.

Grab as many non-tangled coils as you can.

2. Stick your right hand through the other end of the slinky, so that the tips of your fingers go past the entire tangle.

3. Stick your right hand (or just the fingers) through to the outside of the slinky.

4. Rotate your right wrist clockwise.

Make sure to keep your fingers (or your entire hand) sticking out of the slinky as you rotate it around. 

This should force the entire tangle to slide toward your right hand, unless your slinky was wound in the other direction when it was created, in which case you should rotate your wrist counterclockwise.

However, this is rarer than a cat that has its mind made up about whether it wants to be inside or outside.

The important thing is that as you rotate your wrist, the tangle slides towards your right hand, and eventually off the end.

As you rotate your right wrist, you will want to periodically grab more coils in your left hand, and gently pull them outward to generate some tension, which will make the process easier.

But what if you have a tangle that appears completely hopeless?

Like your life, your slinky tangle probably isn't as hopeless as it seems.

Unless your slinky is metal, in which case it probably is as hopeless as it seems. 

If your metal Slinky® looks like the above one, I recommend throwing it away, turning it into art, or melting it down and forging a battle axe... just in case.

But if you're REALLY attached to your metal Slinky®, the following method will allow you to untangle it. It will be probably have some permanent kinks in it, but it will technically be untangled.

Finally, I present to you...

The Foolproof Method

The Foolproof Method is the most complex, but it will solve literally any tangle.

The gist of the Foolproof Method is this: starting at one end, we're going to steadily grow the untangled portion of the slinky by putting coils where they want to go.

But first, it's time for some more JARGON! (Yay!)

We've already gone over loop-de-loops, which are one element of slinky tangles.

The other element that all tangles are comprised of is what I call hook points.

A hook point is where two different sections of the slinky have become hooked together.

In the above example of a hook point, the yellowish coil on top has become hooked with a blue coil and a yellow coil.

Hook points are most commonly composed of 2 or 3 coils, like the above one. 

Your hopeless tangle is likely comprised of many separate hook points.

The Foolproof Method is a method of eliminating all of these hook points, one by one. It goes like this:

1. Find one end of the slinky and grip it in your right hand.

Let the slinky dangle downwards from your right hand.

2. Follow the path of the slinky downward from your right hand, until you find the first hook point.

3. Collect all of the coils between your right hand and the first hook point, and lock them in your right hand.

Grip with all the fingers of your right hand along the circumference of the coils to lock them in your hand. Keep them locked in your hand for the duration of this exercise. You'll be passing them through the hook point, and you don't want them to become hooked on any other coils, which would make the tangle worse.

4. Stick the fingers of your left hand through the first hook point, from the left.

You're using your left hand to create an opening, so that you can put the coils in your right hand where they want to go (through the hook point). 

5. Pass the coils in your right hand to your left hand, through the hook point. 

The coils should travel through the hook point and into your left hand on the other side. If you followed these instructions correctly, you will have eliminated one hook point! Congratulations.

If you did not follow these instructions correctly, you will have not eliminated one hook point! Try again.

6. Repeat steps 2-5 until no more hook points remain.

At this stage, your slinky may be fully untangled. But there's a good chance it has some loop-de-loops left. 

On a plastic slinky (or a metal Slinky® without the anti-stabbing crimp), simply use the Unwinding Method to eliminate these loop-de-loops. Ta-da! Your slinky should be good as new. 

To eliminate a loop-de-loop on a metal Slinky®, grip with both hands as close to the loop-de-loop as you can, and twist each side counterclockwise as far as possible. 

Ta-da! You should now be left with a perfectly untangled, hopelessly stretched-out metal Slinky®. 

If you want a toy spring that is tangle-resistant, easy to untangle, and specially designed to be the perfect proportions for performing tricks way cooler than walking down the stairs, go buy a HyperSpring. With our 30 day Money Back Guarantee, you have nothing to lose! 

Keep practicing, "Slinky Josh" Jacobs Founder, HyperSpring Toys