Clip

How do the jaws open so that the clothes can be attached?

I'm interested to see how yet another plasitc product can instantly be declared 'eco friendly' with no credentials...

...you need to look at the bigger picture Naps!

And how does this play out in the big picture as 100% eco friendly exactly?

And how would you open the jaws to clip the thick fabrics?

...talking of the Indian context...there are organised groups of scavengers(rag pickers!)...who meticulously pick up plastic waste from every corner of the city...so actually plastic is not at all hazardous to nature. Moreover, since Clip has no metal component...recycling it is even more easier. Please note that this Clip lives on an average...double the life of any other metal insert cloth peg. So...less no. of such clips would be disposed in a given amount of time. In addition to this...Clip has no natural material...instead its made of recycled plastic! Hope i have been able to bust your myths about plastic! Now,if you have seen the Clip clearly...you would note that you just need to slide it over the cloth/fabric..and the geometry of the Clip + the flexibility of the material allows it to do so. For more details see:http://differentialdesign.blogspot.com/2006/02/clotheline-clip.html

This I love! Clever use of material and a great example that 'form-follows-function'designs can be pretty. Only thing is the producability... you'll need a quite complex mould.

of-course i will love to buy it. but the only things i would like to know are that, are you taking any efforts to bring this fantastic conceptual product in the market(other than the survey)? if yes,then till how long will i have to wait? since your previous products mainly award winning(ex:mug) are begging to be in the market & actually they deserve to be in.so i personally think that u should think seriously about that.

...i am also looking for manufacturers who would like to help me bring it to the market. any takers?

who uses clothslines anymore?

we use in India.

I think most of the world uses them including Middle East, Asia, Africa and South America. Paul, how much do you think tooling would cost? Also, how much do you think you could make them for? (Usually you would multiply the raw cost by a factor of 4-5 to determine the sale price)

I have not yet done the costing,unfortunately!

it's a very nice concept, you should find a manufacturer..

If any one has any contact of a manufacturer...please leave a message here. Thanks.

for independent living this idea is good, it seems large so people with arthritis and other disabilities will be able to use it. how maleable is the plastic? I wouldn't say that it is 100% eco friendly, there are still production and material costs, which i think you have skipped over just to have some buzz words

how does production and material costs make any product less eco-friendly? Please refer my earlier explaination.

Fantastic design - simple, no moving parts, suited to less dextrous fingers, colourful, made from recycled plastic - all it needs is an alarm to stop the neighbours stealing them!!!

...think i should start working on the alarm thing....hahahaha

simple and perfect

love it

Neat idea. However, if it's to exert any force on the clothes, there needs to be some way to pry the jaws open in the first place to allow you to use it. Also, while making it double-sided is a neat trick, the reason these things break is that the plastic gets old and brittle. Both ends will go brittle at the same rate, so when one part breaks, the other won't be far behind.

trick?...what does that mean?...u saying..i'm trying to fool people here? GOD!...this is one mean comment i have ever recieved!

He didn't say you were trying to trick people, he said it's a neat trick. If you can't handle a bit of crit on your design you in the wrong business. Don't be such a milksop.

Looks like a solid design. The concept for holding the cloth is similar to one that I've seen used for holding tea towels, coats etc. It might seems a bit unusual but it definitely works, and no prying apart of the working edge is ever need. It might not be as quick as using pegs (I've seen some pros with the pegs), but that's a pretty meagre critique.

Plastic clothes pegs don't live forever - the plastic becomes brittle in the sun, a few summers ago we destroyed loads of pegs trying to open them, they'd just 'crunch'.

how pointless. clothes pegs cost like 2p and if you can't afford that then you have real problems

"100% eco-friendly" BULL SH*T that can't be. What about the truck that drives it. What about etc etc etc. all the crap you have to go through to make it and delever it. I am so sick of people falling for this crap. I am done

i would like to know if they come in ivory too...

This is probably the simplest and cleverest idea yet on this site. well done

INIT_6 - grow up. What do you expect - a peg that biodegrades when you tell it to, and travels back in time to plant trees to offset it's Co2 footprint??? How can any commercial product for mass distribution avoid a Co2 footprint - rowboats and catapults? I agree not enough is being done to prevent global warming, esp given that we have decades of committed warming ahead of us, even if we stop now, but it's churlish to attack a symptom and not the cause

try ideawicket.com Paul, it might help to get this thing into production. great design though.

thanks Prameet...

There is another positive to this design that has not been commented on. Most of us go to hang up clothing, only to find clothes pegs scattered all over the line. It is difficult to push normal clothes pegs out of the way to hang a large bed sheet for instance. If you look at the image provided here, it is very easy here to push the pegs around the line.

Nice observation Tony...it was by design!

There's a major flaw in this design: it doesn't grip the clothesline. A little wind could blow all of the clothes to one end of the line.

Deano, this isn't a 'major flaw'...if you insist...i can explain.

very nice. i want some of them for the closeline in my basement. my dryer isnt too efficient, some stuff still damp afterwards

i'm still looking for manufacturers....any takers?!

who uses clothes pins anymore?

this question has been answered already. Curious enough to check the following link? http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/09/sandip_pauls_cl.php

What happened to clothes dryers? When did we go back to hangin clothes on lines? Get with the program!!!

Very beutiful concept!

Is this clip designed keeping in my mind the diameter of a clothesline cord. In Brazil, China, India, Spain for example people use right from thin metal wires to thick nylon cords (as you have shown above). For example consider this condition: Your clip is used for 2 similar cotton hankerchief, one on a thin wire and one on thick against a gush of wind. How good will your design hold in that case?

Another observation: Your clip seems to have been designed so that the lips on either side actually touch each other when not in use. Can you imagine what a tough job it is to press against a thick cloth like denim pair put on a thick nylon cord! Isn't it? And with daily use like that your clothesline will keep frequently snapping! I don't think a clip should be doing that. That'll be frustrating, right? I see this more a push-design than a grip-design and I do see a problem there which far overshadows the clip's USPs of dual use, no rust, eco, blah blah blah....

Another observation: Your clip seems to have been designed so that the lips on either side actually touch each other when not in use. Can you imagine what a tough job it is to press against a thick cloth like denim pair put on a thick nylon cord! Isn't it? And with daily use like that your clothesline will keep frequently snapping! I don't think a clip should be doing that. That'll be frustrating, right? I see this more a push-design than a grip-design and I do see a problem there which far overshadows the clip's USPs of dual use, no rust, eco, blah blah blah....

Tried and tested...the image which you see is of a tangible product, not a computer generated rendering. I appreciate your observational skills but suggest you to think beyond the obvious!

Thats cool! I did'nt mean to offend your concept, if you've felt so! I felt with whatever little descriptor you have given its obvious to think like that, as a common user. Cheers!

Is your Clip symmetrical in geometry such that the distribution of plastic is uniform on both lip-ends after molding? In case, you may have to consider that all Clips will not necessarily remain in this beautiful position as shown. The side where weight will be slightly greater(due to plastic distribution in molding) will always remain down. Now, as I see in your prototype, there is a slight gap that is given between the lip to ensure it glides smoothly to grip the clothes. Now, if the top part is heavier than the bottom (due to manufacturing, possible!), there is a high probability that the Clip kept in a thin metal wire in idle condition will flip due to its weight and fall off! How have you resolved this? I hope you have considered that thin metal wires are also used widely as clothesline.

completely symmetrical...and i like your observation! The clip always hangs in this position.

First of -- good idea, very KISS. (keep it small/short and simple) I love that it is symmetrical. The mold probably will have 3 inserts (I might b wrong, so mold experts please rip me!) hence expensive, but considering the fact that this is a clip and the production will be in HUGE quantities, I am not too focused on that. Coming back to the design, the picture shown above looks unstable. what i mean to say, i am not convinced that the clip will stay in the postion shown in the above picture. as seen in the above pic the top looks heavy and hence the tendency will be to fall towards the ground, but u say the clip is symmetrical, in that case the gravity will try to balance the clip on either sides of the string/wire that it is hanging off of. and considering the manufacturing realities, it would be hard to get a balanced clip (again I could eb wrong) it is hard to belive the clip will always hang in this position... still a good product KANCEPT ;-)

Dear`Acro, I did not intentionally hang the clip in this particular position. It just happened to be. Its a working prototype!

Paul, have you registered the design? I am not sure if this design is patentable and to what extent, but you should obtain a legal copyright on this design.

Paul, though you are very passionate about this form and design, I feel there is a good scope to optimise on the amount of plastic used. In case you have not come across this link before, you can take some inspiration from Ross Lovegrove's work: (http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=r_lovegrove&flashEnabled=1)

thanks On`Duty... i was actually thinking on similar lines...

nice form..

I'm willing to look further into manufacturing it. But Tooling might be a little complicated like Tom Schreuder mentioned - which might affect the overall costs. It's defintely good looking ... but I'm very curious about the functionality. What we have in Singapore is that we hang out our clothes in these bamboo or aluminum poles. So there's a good diameter to grip and we have been supplying these clothes pegs locally for the past 15 yrs. See link http://www.yinshan.com.sg/Products/Molding/Kim%20Kim/Clothes%20Peg.htm and http://www.yinshan.com.sg/Products/Molding/Kim%20Kim/Bamboo%20Cover.htm Drop me a mail. Thanks.

I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I imaging the feel in my hand would be lovely as I hang my wash, and they appear to be sturdier than the standard wood or plastic and metal type that don't even last a year. I'm trying to contact you're producing these in North America. Please email me.