Shove conductive substance in my plug?

Maybe this has already been posted, but if it has, kindly direct me to where I missed it since I don't know the terminology to refine my search.

I've asked on Head-fi, but got rubbish answers...each time I asked. So I'm turning to iFixit!

Hello. I have 1 earphone plug problem and the second paragraph just describes a basic plug problem on a thick cord (easy peasy) but with some excitement for any mods since I plan on ripping out the warped headphone band and all its pleathery flesh!

First, I have earphones with one of those 3-piece plugs (the one with extra interfaces or whatever for an in-line control and mic) and a very thin braided cord which will be a bad idea for me to open. Luckily, the tip is the problem and I still have the tip. Mildly bad connection. After leaving these be for a while (in storage), things seem to have aligned a bit more (self healing!) and I can often go a while listening to stereo if I swivel the plug in a good direction and possibly pinch it. I can fiddle with the cord outside the plastic/rubber housing or sometimes pinch the housing itself in a particular way.

Since opening anything up is gonna be bad, I need to pull out that tip again and shove in something conductive. Agree?

It's a slightly bad connection and degrades slightly with usage as it wiggles. The plug hasn't been pulling out possibly since my device isn't as tight and young as the other. But it won't be hard to yank it with pliers. Thumbs up for my plan? Please suggest any conductive glue or putty. I'm hoping this problem is entirely in the housing.

Second, I have a larger pair of full headphones that had the tip of the 3.5mm plug get stuck in a jack and separated. Circumstances didn't allow me much time to search the floor when I realized it was gone. I'll likely need to get a soldering iron and a new plug. I'm thinking about any cool mods, dismantling these entire headphones swapping out a new band or pads, since they've gotten a bit beaten up and warped in storage.

Anyone wanna offer a cool idea what I can do if I'm willing to tear these wide open?!? :) Come on, you know you wanna see me do something cool (though I'm inexperienced).

In other words, I think I can figure out how to solder and wrap this thing up, but if anyone has any creative ideas (including some cool looking plug or a link to a detachable cord mod, but hopefully an extreme makeover from ground up), that's gonna make my week funner.

Oh and thanks in advance, fellow tinkerers (though that word definition seemed a bit negative when I looked it up). Fellow... idk