A clothespin (US English) or clothes peg (UK English) is a fastener used to hang up clothes for drying, usually on a clothes line. Clothespins come in many different designs.
A clothespin (US English) or clothes peg (UK English) is a fastener used to hang up clothes for drying, usually on a clothes line. Clothespins come in many different designs.
During the 1700s laundry was hung on bushes, limbs or lines to dry but no clothespins can be found in any painting or prints of the era. The clothespin for hanging up wet laundry only appears in the early 19th century supposedly patented by Jérémie Victor Opdebec. [1] This design does not use springs, but is fashioned in one piece of wood, with the two prongs part of the peg chassis with only a small distance between them—this form of peg creates the gripping action due to the two prongs being wedged apart and thus squeezing together in that the prongs want to return to their initial, resting state.[ citation needed ] This form of peg is often fashioned from plastic, or originally, wood. In England, clothes-peg making used to be a craft associated with the Romani people, who made clothes-pegs from small, split lengths of willow or ash wood. [2]
In 1853 David M. Smith of Springfield, Vermont, invented a clothespin with two prongs connected by a fulcrum, plus a spring. [3] [4] [5] By a lever action, when the two prongs are pinched at the top of the peg, the prongs open up, and when released, the spring draws the two prongs shut, creating the action necessary for gripping.[ citation needed ]
The design by Smith was improved by Solon E. Moore in 1887. He added what he called a "coiled fulcrum" made from a single wire, this was the spring that held the wooden pieces together, acted as a spring forcing them to shut, and as a fulcrum on which the two halves could rock, eliminating the need for a separate component, and reducing manufacturing costs. [3] This became the first successful spring-actuated clothespin, being manufactured and sold in huge quantities all across the United States.
The state of Vermont, and its capital of Montpelier, in particular, quickly became what The New York Times has called "The Silicon Valley of Clothespin Manufacturing", the United States Clothespin Company (U.S.C. Co.) opened in 1887 to manufacture Moore's improved design. Vermonter Stephen Thomas, served as company president, and the company enjoyed a significant level of success, in spite of the competitors that rapidly sprang up in Waterbury and other places.
In 1909, Allan Moore, one of the U.S.C. Co. employees, devised a way in which clothespins could be manufactured more cheaply, by eliminating one of the coils in the "spring fulcrum". He left the company, and with a loan from a local entrepreneur opened a competing factory, across the street from the U.S.C. Co. building. The new National Clothespin Company rapidly overtook the U.S.C. Co., consuming 500,000 board-feet of lumber at the height of production. After World War I, cheap imports from Europe began to flood the market, leading to repeated calls for protective tariffs by Vermont, and the state industry went into decline; in 1920, it cost 58 cents to manufacture one gross of clothespins in Vermont, while imported Swedish clothespins were sold for 48 cents a gross. The situation worsened after World War II, and the introduction of the electric clothes dryer diminished demand for clothespins, further damaging the industry; the U.S.C. Co. closed before the end of the 1940s. However, the National Clothespin Company, who had previously moved from its original location across the street, and had been sold to a new owner, managed to stay in business by virtue of a contract with the F. W. Woolworths department store chain. In this fashion, they managed to hang on through the following decades, in spite of a disastrous fire in 1978. The profit margin was eaten into further by the increasing volume of cheap Chinese imports; pleas for protective tariffs continued, but to no result. The company, which had discontinued its line of wooden clothespins, diversified into plastics, including plastic clothespins, which constituted only a small part of overall production. However, the National Clothespin Company finally ceased production of clothespins, the last American-manufactured clothespin coming off the production line in 2009. [6]
Clothespins were further enhanced by the invention of stainless steel clothespins that do not rust or decay with outdoor use. Rather than using a torsion spring that often twists, causing the clothespin to fall apart, they rely on a strong, trapped, compression spring that results in a stronger grip.
One famous clothespin is a sculpture by Claes Oldenburg, entitled Clothespin. It is in Philadelphia across the street from the City Hall, and can be seen in the movie Trading Places . [7]
There is a 5-foot clothespin granite grave marker in the Middlesex cemetery, Vermont, marking the grave of Jack Crowell, the last owner of the National Clothespin Company, which was the last clothespin manufacturer in the United States. He originally requested that it include a working spring be included so children could play on it, but the stone workers convinced him it wasn't feasible. [6]
During the production of a movie, commercial, music video etc., a spring-type clothespin is called a "CP 47", "C47", "47", "peg", "ammo", or "bullet". It is useful on set since the lights used on film sets quickly become far too hot to touch; a wooden C47 is used to attach a color correction gel or diffusion to the barn doors on a light. [8] The wooden clothespins do not transmit heat very effectively, and therefore are safe to touch, even when attached to hot lights for a significant period of time. Plastic clothespins are not used as plastic would melt with the heat of the lights, and metal would transfer the heat, making the clothespin too hot to touch. People like gaffers, grips, electricians, and production assistants may keep a collection of C47s clipped to clothing or utility belt at all times. [9] Hence the nickname "bullet", as so many crew members clip a number of C47s to their utility belts, much like an old west gunslinger would carry extra bullets on his gun belt.
When a performer is in full makeup they sometimes cannot drink from a cup so they drink from a straw. When the bottle or cup is too deep for the straw a C47 is clipped an inch from the top of the straw to keep the straw from falling into the drink.
In lutherie (the construction and repair of stringed instruments), clothes-pegs are often used to glue on kerfing during the production of guitars, mandolins, and other stringed instruments. [10] [11] [12]
Since multiple RC frequency use began in the RC hobbies in the mid-20th century, so-called "frequency pins" have been used to ensure that only one modeler was using a particular frequency at any one time. The common, spring-loaded two-piece wood clothespin - marked in some manner with text and/or color-coding for the designated frequency it references, usually with an added piece of thin plywood or plastic on the clothespin to place the text or color-code upon for greater visibility - is the usual basis for these, whether the model club itself provides them already clipped onto a "frequency control board" for the modeler to take for their activity (clipped onto their transmitter's antenna, in a so-called "subtractive" method) or the modeler make them for their own transmitter(s), and places them on a club facility's existing frequency board (the "additive" method). [13]
For many years players in ensembles such as brass bands playing outdoors have used spring pegs to hold their music in place since even the mildest breeze will blow a loose sheet away.
Clothespins may be used during acts that involve pinching such as in breast torture or zippers.
A breadboard, solderless breadboard, or protoboard is a construction base used to build semi-permanent prototypes of electronic circuits. Unlike a perfboard or stripboard, breadboards do not require soldering or destruction of tracks and are hence reusable. For this reason, breadboards are also popular with students and in technological education.
Laundry is the washing of clothing and other textiles, and, more broadly, their drying and ironing as well. Laundry has been part of history since humans began to wear clothes, so the methods by which different cultures have dealt with this universal human need are of interest to several branches of scholarship.
The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of electric guitar designed between 1952 and 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously manufactured the Stratocaster since 1954. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top "horn" shape for balance. "Stratocaster" and "Strat" are trademark terms belonging to Fender. Guitars that duplicate the Stratocaster by other manufacturers are sometimes called S-Type or ST-type guitars. Many prominent rock musicians have been associated with the Stratocaster for use in studio recording and live performances, most notably Eric Clapton, Buddy Holly, David Gilmour, Mark Knopfler, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Mark Speer and George Harrison.
A webbing stretcher is an upholstery tool used to stretch webbing.
A crocodile clip or alligator clip is a plier-like spring-tensioned metal clip with elongated, serrated jaws that is used for creating a temporary electrical connection. This simple mechanical device gets its name from the resemblance of its serrated jaws to the toothed jaws of a crocodile or alligator. It is used to clamp and grab onto a bare electrical cable to a lead on a battery or some other electrical component. The clip's tapered, serrated jaws are forced together by a spring to grip an object. A Clothespin or Kelvin clip is a special form of crocodile clip whose jaws are insulated from each other, allowing two isolated wires to connect to a single test point. This enables 4-wire measurement of circuits with very low resistances. When manufactured for electronics testing and evaluation, one jaw of the clip is typically permanently crimped or soldered to a wire, or is bent to form the inner tubular contact of a ~4 mm (0.16 in) female banana jack, enabling quick non-permanent connection between a circuit under test and laboratory equipment or to another electrical circuit. The clip is typically covered by a plastic shroud or "boot" to prevent accidental short-circuits.
A fastener or fastening is a hardware device that mechanically joins or affixes two or more objects together. In general, fasteners are used to create non-permanent joints; that is, joints that can be removed or dismantled without damaging the joining components. Steel fasteners are usually made of stainless steel, carbon steel, or alloy steel.
A clothes line, also spelled clothesline, also known as a washing line, is a device for hanging clothes on for the purpose of drying or airing out the articles. It is made of any type of rope, cord, or twine that has been stretched between two points, outdoors or indoors, above ground level. Clothing that has recently been washed is hung over the line to dry, held in place using clothes pegs or clothespins. Washing lines are attached either from a post or a wall, and are frequently located in back gardens, or on balconies. Longer washing lines often have props holding up the mid-section so the weight of the clothing does not pull the clothesline down to the ground.
Tube sockets are electrical sockets into which vacuum tubes can be plugged, holding them in place and providing terminals, which can be soldered into the circuit, for each of the pins. Sockets are designed to allow tubes to be inserted in only one orientation. They were used in most tube electronic equipment to allow easy removal and replacement. When tube equipment was common, retailers such as drug stores had vacuum tube testers, and sold replacement tubes. Some Nixie tubes were also designed to use sockets.
A radio-controlled aircraft is a small flying machine that is radio controlled by an operator on the ground using a hand-held radio transmitter. The transmitter continuously communicates with a receiver within the craft that sends signals to servomechanisms (servos) which move the control surfaces based on the position of joysticks on the transmitter. The control surfaces, in turn, directly affect the orientation of the plane.
A staple remover is a device that allows for the quick removal of a staple from a material without causing damage. The best-known form of staple remover, designed for light-gauge staples, consists of two opposing, pivot-mounted pairs of thin, steep wedges and a spring that returns the device to the open position after use. Although a simple metal wedge can be used for the same purpose, and although some staplers feature such a wedge at their hinge end, use of the wedge tends to tear fragile papers.
The Western Electric model 500 telephone series was the standard domestic desk telephone set issued by the Bell System in[North America from 1950 through the 1984 Bell System divestiture. The successor to the model 302 telephone, the model 500's modular construction compared to previous types simplified manufacture and repair and facilitated a large number of variants with added features. Touch-tone service was introduced to residential customers in 1963 with the model 1500 telephone, which had a push-button pad for the ten digits. The model 2500 telephone, introduced in 1968, added the * (asterisk) and # (pound) keys.
A pin is a device, typically pointed, used for fastening objects or fabrics together. Pins can have the following sorts of body:
A bobby pin is a type of hairpin, usually of metal or plastic, used in coiffure to hold hair in place. It is a small double-pronged hair pin or clip that slides into hair with the prongs open and then the flexible prongs close over the hair to hold it in place. They are typically plain and unobtrusively colored, but some are elaborately decorated or jeweled. Bobby pins became popular in the 1920s to hold the new bobbed hairstyles.
Wooden toy trains are toy trains that run on a wooden track system with grooves to guide the wheels of the rolling stock. While the trains, tracks and scenery accessories are made mainly of wood, the engines and cars connect to each other using metal hooks or small magnets, and some use plastic wheels mounted on metal axles. Some trains are made to resemble anthropomorphical, fictional, and prototypical railroad equipment.
A lapel pin, also known as an enamel pin, is a small pin worn on clothing, often on the lapel of a jacket, attached to a bag, or displayed on a piece of fabric. Lapel pins can be ornamental or can indicate the wearer's affiliation with a cause or an organization, such as a fraternal order or religious order; in the case of a chivalric order, the lapel pin is in the form of a rosette. Before the popularity of wearing lapel pins, boutonnières were worn.
The Cembalet is a type of electro-mechanical piano built by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany from the late-1950s to the late 1960s, and designed by Ernst Zacharias. It was a reed-based electric piano intended for home use, and the first keyboard produced by Hohner as a piano-like instrument rather than an instrument having the sustained note of an organ. It was adopted by popular musicians for recording and performance in the early 1960s because it was portable and easy to amplify electronically.
Clothespin is a weathering steel sculpture by Claes Oldenburg, located at Centre Square, 1500 Market Street, Philadelphia. It is designed to appear as a monumental black clothespin. Oldenburg is noted for his attempts to democratize art with large stylized sculptures of everyday objects, and the location of Clothespin, above Philadelphia's City Hall subway station, allows thousands of commuters to view it on a daily basis. It was commissioned in May 1974 by developer Jack Wolgin as part of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority's percent for art program, and was dedicated June 25, 1976.
A casement stay is a metal bar used to hold a casement window in a specific open or closed position. Metal windows will normally have the stay included at the time of manufacture, while wooden windows will have them added after fitting.
The National Clothespin Factory is a historic industrial building at One Granite Street in Montpelier, Vermont. Built in 1918, it is a significant local example of an early 20th-century wood-frame factory, and was home to the nation's last manufacturer of wooden clothespins. Now adapted for other uses, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
The first design that resembles the modern clothespin was patented in 1853 by David M. Smith, a prolific Vermont inventor.
Use of frequency pins to identify the frequency in use. Pins, often clothespins, are marked with the color or channel number of the frequencies they represent. Only one pin is available at the flying site for each frequency. Transmitters shall not be operated without possession of a pin that identifies the frequency in use.
