Traditional vs Lilja

(More About Assembling Clothespins)

Dateline: 22 December 2014

This much sidebite is not acceptable to me...
(click picture to see enlarged view)

After putting 20,000+ clothespins together (so far) I’ve come to the conclusion that this part of the clothespin-making process can be a little discouraging. I say that because I want every single clothespin to go together so it opens and closes in perfect alignment, but it just doesn’t work out that way. More often than I like, the clothespin closes with a sidebite, as shown in the picture above.

Of course, all fulcrum-spring clothespins are inclined to close with a sidebite, and I explain this to my customers at This Link on my web site. So I’ve resigned myself to the fact that some sidebite, or the tendency to sidebite, is to be expected, and therefore acceptable.

However, I will not sell an assembled clothespin with a severe sidebite. With that in mind, here is a rundown of how I’m currently assembling my Classic American clothespins and “solving” the sidebite problem, as well as can be expected.

First, I typically assemble clothespins in the evenings, as I’m watching a movie or listening to some sort of podcast. I’ll assemble maybe a hundred or so clothespins, until I get bored with the job, or the program I’m listening to is over. 

That old saying, “inch by inch, it’s a cinch” applies to this part of the clothespin-making process. By putting a few clothespins together in the evenings, on a consistent basis, over a period of time, you can make a lot of progress without being overwhelmed. 

I’ve done the assembly work on my lap while sitting in a recliner, and I’ve done the work on a work-surface in front of my computer screen. The flat work-surface is a far more efficient place to get the job done...

Be it ever so humble...

The picture above shows my computer "station" in my house. It's an old desk and, yes, it’s a mess, That’s normal. My wife doesn’t like it that way and every so often I tidy it up (but it doesn’t stay that way for long). The work-surface is just a piece of Masonite over the pulled-out center drawer of the desk. Works for me.

As you can see (click the picture to see an enlarged view), I lay out a bunch of clothespin halves, with a pile of springs, and my O’Neill Pinner. With the clothespin halves facing bottom-up, I can clearly see the “touch-pad” on all the pins. “Touch-pad” is a part of the clothespin anatomy that is not in the “Anatomy of a Clothespin Half” drawing in your specifications. It will be shown in the next printing of the specifications. Here’s a picture showing some touch-pads...

Please note that the touch-pads shown in the picture above are different sizes (click the picture to see a larger view). That happens because the flitches tend to warp a little bit and a little bit of warp translates to a little bit of variation in how deeply the router bits cut during steps #5, #6, and #7 (see your specifications). 

When I made my first batch of 20,000 clothespin halves in 2013, I fed every flitch through the router table by hand, using a push pad (not, mind you, to be confused with a clothespin touch-pad). I really put the pressure down on the flitches with the push pad so they flattened out, and the clothespin touch-pads were pretty uniform as a result. But the pin halves shown above were made in 2014, using a shaper with a power feeder. The power feeder was a great tool, but it did not hold the flitches down as well as my arm and a push pad did the year before.

The variation in touch-pads is not something I’m concerned about. It’s a minor thing. BUT it is important to me when assembling the clothespins that I join two halves with similar-sized touch-pads. This is easy to do if you lay the halves out so you can see and select the touch-pads that match up. Here is a picture of an assembled clothespin with small touch-pads...

Assembled clothespin with small touch pads.

And here is a picture of an assembled clothespin with large touch-pads.

Assembled clothespin with large touch-pads

After I assemble a clothespin I open and close it a couple times to access how it naturally closes. Primarily, I’m checking the sidebite. If the clothespin has more of a sidebite than I think is acceptable, I take it apart and use a different spring with a different half. Sometimes I do this a couple of times before I’m satisfied with the “bite.” It is surprising how two clothespin halves will not go together well with one spring, but they will with another. And the spring that was set aside ends up working just fine with two other clothespin halves (no springs are rejected and wasted).

The reason why the clothespin halves do not go together uniformly is that the springs and the wood halves are not perfectly uniform. A small variation in each or either translates to differences in how the clothespins close. That’s my theory about it. 

Obviously, it can be tedious to assemble, disassemble, and reassemble clothespins that do not close to my satisfaction, but that is what I do. It’s important to me that the assembled clothespins I sell have a tolerable (very slight) sidebite, or none at all, when the customer gets them. You needn’t be so fussy if you’re not the fussy type. 

I've also used pliers to bend spring ends to eliminate side bite. It works once you figure out which way to put the bit-of-bend. But that's tedious too.

Another Approach

The Lilja Spring Assembly?

I designed my Classic American clothespins so they would assemble with the spring as shown in the pictures above. It’s a traditional assembly. But Pete Lilja, of Cedar Falls, Iowa, sent me a picture of one of his clothespins with the spring (which he purchased from me) configured in a way I had never seen or imagined before. Here is a picture showing the Lilja Spring Assembly

When I first saw Pete’s idea, I thought to myself, “Hey, that’s all wrong!” 

But then I tried it, and I discovered that it’s not necessarily all wrong. It actually works pretty well. In some ways, it works better than the traditional way.

One surprising result of the Lilja Spring Assembly is that the coiled part of the springs fit perfectly in the spring-seat groove. Perfectly. You may have noticed that the coils rarely seat just right in the groove with the traditional spring assembly, but this is not the case when the spring is used Pete's way.  

If my experience is any indication, the other nice thing about the Lilja Spring Assembly is that the clothespin halves tend to fit together better. There is less tendency to overbite. And, curiously, if there is an overbite, it is usually in the opposite direction from the “traditional overbite.”

One downside to the Lilja Spring Assembly is that the two closepin halves are not “captured” by the crossing springs. You can easily slide one clothespin half to the side and separate the clothespin. BUT it doesn’t appear that there is a natural tendency for the clothespins to come apart; you have to put some effort into it to make it happen. 

Another downside is that the O'Neill Pinner doesn't work all that well for the assembly.

But the biggest drawback to this approach is that it's a totally unconventional assembly. I don't think customers are going to accept it.

Nevertheless, I encourage you to give this idea a try and see for yourself which idea is best for the clothespins you make.

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P.S. And if you would rather not assemble your clothespins yourself, perhaps you would like to get one of these....

I found this on the internet. It was labeled as a "Clothespins Automatic Assembly Machine."  I assume it is made in China.