The 
O'Neill Pinner

Specifications for making your own O'Neill Pinner can be found in the Specifications & Project Notes For Making Classic American Clothespins. This page shown you how the pinner works. 

This is the original O'Neill Pinner, made by Tom O'Neill himself.

To use the pinner, simply slide a Classic American clothespin spring over the post, as shown here. The bottom "leg" of the spring wire is captured in the channel between the two pieces of steel.

With the bottom leg held in place, you can hook your fingernail on the end of the top leg and spread it apart, as this picture shows. It isn't really necessary to pull it as far as shown here. It only needs to be far enough for the mouth chamfer to get in between the two spring ends. Once chamfer is started, the clothespin half can be pushed into place.

In this picture the clothespin half is part way into position. It needs to be pushed in further until the spring end snaps into the spring-end groove.

Here you see the spring is in place on the clothespin half. After this is done, the assembly is lifted off the pin and turned over.

Here you can see the assembly has been turned over and is in place for putting the other half on.

The clothespin half becomes a handy lever for spreading the spring apart so the other half can be slid into place. In this picture my index finger is holding downward pressure on the spring (so the bottom stays in the channel), while my  thumb on the end of the pin is pivoting the spring apart.

Here you see that I'm easily sliding the clothespin half into place.

And that's it. What you have just seen in all the previous pictures can be done in 5 seconds or less, with little effort.

The assembled clothespin.

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You Can Purchase
An Already-Made
O'Neill Pinner Right Here

An O'Neill Pinner, as made by Classic American Clothespins
(click picture for larger view)

I used to sell O'Neill pinners like you see in the picture above. But they sold out and I have no plans to make more. So you'll need to make your own. You can do it!
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Price: $24.95 (plus $5 for shipping)
Availability: Out of stock