# Custom Clothes Pins



## Clay3063 (Mar 4, 2017)

I got to looking through all the threads and I don't see an appropriate place to start a thread on making clothespins and various other essential tools. So.... I'll continue here I guess.

It's raining today. Has been all day long. We had a work day at the church building this morning so I was busy with some things there. Then this afternoon I went back out to the shop and ran all the 9/16" Ash boards through the thickness planer until I had them down to just a smidgen over 3/8" thick.

Then I cut those boards into 5 1/2" x 3 1/2" x 3/8" flitches. There were 72 when I finished just like I figured before I got started. Then I started the tedious process of milling them into clothespins. The first two cuts are the finger grips. The original design that Herrick Kimball came up with in his plans called for three. I guess that would be easy enough to do if I had three blades ganged up on the arbor. But I only have one good blade right now and so I ran 72 flitches through and then reset the fence and made the second pass. The third pass is the groove that is cut to hold the spring end in place over the pin halves. I did that until my back got tired of leaning over the saw.

I'm done for the day. Tomorrow afternoon I'll chuck up a router bit in the router table and make the grooves on the other side.

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## ripjack13 (Mar 5, 2017)

I moved this here. Since we all want to know how you make em, this area is perfect.
Please, Clay, by all means, continue continuing on....

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## tocws2002 (Mar 5, 2017)

In...

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## Clay3063 (Mar 5, 2017)

Thanks Marc. I need to put a disclaimer here. I can't in good conscience give the dimensions and such on these pins as I bought set of plans from Herrick Kimball in order to build them. I guess I could have bought one of his pins and reverse engineered them to come up with the right dimensions but that wouldn't be fair to him. While he doesn't have a patent on them that I am aware of he did go to a lot of trouble and research before he came up with this design. I do feel however that I can do as he has done on his website, do a photo essay which I will do here as I progress through the build. He did that on his webpage and it is in the public domain, though you have to search pretty hard to find the link to his photo essay on the building of the pins, so I see no harm in that. I don't know the rules well enough here to know whether I can post the website where the plans can be purchased. If it's ok I'll post that link. The plans are cheap enough and very detailed and he does follow up with a lot of Q&A in support of his work. With that being said, I will continue to show pics as I progress through the steps. BTW, he sells the stainless steel springs for these pins and the story behind that is typical of a lot of things these days. There are no longer and American companies that make qood quality clothespin springs. Herrick happened to come across a company that would however, make springs according to his dimensions. And so he has them made and then sells them. Interesting. So if anyone is interested in making these you have two choices, buy a good quality clothes pin like these from either myself or Herrick and reverse engineer it and then find someone to make the springs for you or order the plans from Herrick and buy your springs from him too. The latter is what I did and do. He is a really neat guy and I like his ethic and what he is doing. He has a blog I think many of you would find appealing as well, "Upland". Google it.

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## ripjack13 (Mar 5, 2017)

That works for us. Good call. A "How it's Made" style is good enough. Sizes are not needed. Just the process.

Here's his web page....

http://classicamericanclothespins.blogspot.com/


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## ripjack13 (Mar 5, 2017)

I'm going to order some springs. My wife has a clothes line I installed, it was supposed to be quick and cheap. After getting a large sliver in my forearm from installing the post, a trip to the er the next day because of an infection that rapidly set in, $1700 later the clothes line was not cheap anymore....


Anyhow, If I put that much money in making it, I suppose making quality clothes pins shoud go hand in hand.....

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## ripjack13 (Mar 5, 2017)

I just showed Michele. She gave the green light....wooo!

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## Clay3063 (Mar 5, 2017)

ripjack13 said:


> I just showed Michele. She gave the green light....wooo!



Good for you. i figure it's like you said, You already spent this much money might as well go all out and get some good springs! LOL. Dude, you either need to be more careful or just go ahead and sign up for a padded room.

Reactions: Funny 1


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## Lou Currier (Mar 5, 2017)




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## Clay3063 (Mar 5, 2017)

Lou Currier said:


>



I guess you're waiting on me to get off my hind end and go out to the shop and make some saw dust. LOL!

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## Lou Currier (Mar 5, 2017)

Clay3063 said:


> I guess you're waiting on me to get off my hind end and go out to the shop and make some saw dust. LOL!

Reactions: Funny 1


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## rocky1 (Mar 6, 2017)




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## Clay3063 (Mar 6, 2017)

The last picture I posted the other day showed all of the grip grooves and the spring end groove cut into the flitches. I was going to work on them yesterday but got side tracked. Or lazy. Maybe both. Anyway, this morning I went out to the shop and began the task of cutting grooves on the other side using the router table. There are 4 cuts with the router table using three bits: 3/8 core box, 1/4 core box and 45 degree chamfer bit. In these pics I have cut the first grove which is the spring seat groove using a 3/8 core box bit. The next cut is the large mouth groove using the same bit set at a different depth. Not much difference but a little and it is important to pay attention to the depth as some of that mouth will be removed when the bevel cut is lade on the mouth a little later using the table saw again. The third cut I made was the small mouth groove using the 1/4" core box bit. Again, it is important to pay attention to all the details in the plans. Some small deviances can be tolerated to a degree. Larger deviances will ruin the piece. All I lack on these is the 45 degree chamfer on the mouth and then cutting the bevels and then the individual pin halves. From there they will be cleaned up and oiled. But more on that later. There are a couple of pictures of a push block I made to do all of the work on the router table. Until today I have been doing everything by hand with the exception of using a cheap plastic push stick on the table saw. Some of the flitches have a small bow or cup in them and pushing 72 flitches across a table and through a router bit will wear hard on your fingers after a while. I don't know why I didn't make one sooner. I intended to buy a push block but after prices them I put it off. So this morning after making the first pass across the router table, cutting the spring seat groove I stopped and made a push stick. Pretty simple. Turned the handle from a piece of oak and the block is a piece of scrap 3/4 plywood with a 1/4" piece of luan ply glued and stapled across the bottom as a stop. I improved the quality of the cut across all of the flitches including the ones with a slight cup to them. And I increased the speed of this tedious process by a factor of 10 at least. 

One last thing. Making clothes pins isn't rocket science. But it isn't easy either. IN and of itself eac individual step is a no brainer. But... put them all together and the tolerances needed to make the thing work right is where the difficulty comes into play. 
On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being a hair stick and 10 being a @Kenbo 's firetruck kit this is about a 5 or 6 maybe. Mainly because of the repetitiveness of all the processes and the need to pay attention to the measurements. One wrong measurement and you can screw up to the point of being nothing but trash, a lot of work and wood. 
Here are the pics of this mornings work.

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## Clay3063 (Mar 6, 2017)

And so this afternoon I completed all of the milling step on the clothes pin flitches. The last thing to do now is cut the individual halves then finish them and then sort the good ones from the rejects. I expect around 10-15% reject. Once they've been sorted then we'll install the springs and we'll have clothes pins. 

This afternoon I used the 45 degree chamfer bit in the router and cut the mouth chamfer. Then I put them into the flitch sled and cut first one bevel end and then reset the saw and flipped and cut the handle bevel end. The flitch sled is ok but I hate the clamping system. I ordered some horizontal clamps that attach to the sled and that should make for faster and easier clamping. I'll post pics when I build the new sled.

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## Lou Currier (Mar 6, 2017)

Looks like a lot of tear out...is it the wood or the router bit?

Looks like a lot of work


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## rocky1 (Mar 6, 2017)

Watched this process on "How'd they make that?" And, the mill work that goes into a simple clothespin is mind boggling!!

Is it just me Clay, or are these like jumbo clothespins? They appear to be half again as big as a regular clothespin to me.


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## Clay3063 (Mar 6, 2017)

Lou Currier said:


> Looks like a lot of tear out...is it the wood or the router bit?
> 
> Looks like a lot of work


 There is a lot of tear out. Probably the wood. The bits are pretty new and carbide. The wood is Ash and is very dry and has a few worm holes in it. I could be pushing the wood a little fast too. But, I also think that this Delta router table doesn't turn as high an RPM as a regular router. And it is a lot of tedious work. Not hard. But it's a lot of repetition. If I continue doing this I am going to invest in an other router table and use a regular router. And I will probably get another table saw as well just to keep from having to change settings all the time. It's also time for a new saw blade. Think I am going to go with the Forrest brand thin Kerf. It has a flat bottom kerf whereas the others don't. Oh and I take the tear out in consideration when I measure the flitches and make them wide enough to allow for the tear out.

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## Clay3063 (Mar 6, 2017)

rocky1 said:


> Watched this process on "How'd they make that?" And, the mill work that goes into a simple clothespin is mind boggling!!
> 
> Is it just me Clay, or are these like jumbo clothespins? They appear to be half again as big as a regular clothespin to me.



These pins are a little bigger than the old American pins, though I wouldn't call them Jumbo. I'll see if I can find some pics of the old American pins. These have a larger mouth opening as well. They are monstrous compared to the foreign crap you can buy at the store. Other than 8 other artisans including Mr. Kimball who designed these, no one else is making them in the US. The springs are stainless steel and to my knowledge no one has ever mass produced pins with stainless springs before. It is tedious, monotonous work. But at the end of the day, I get a good feeling when I put two polished halves together and they work as advertised.

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## Clay3063 (Mar 6, 2017)

rocky1 said:


> Watched this process on "How'd they make that?" And, the mill work that goes into a simple clothespin is mind boggling!!
> 
> Is it just me Clay, or are these like jumbo clothespins? They appear to be half again as big as a regular clothespin to me.



Here are a few pins from other sources. The first picture is of American made pins. The one in the middle is one made by Mr. Kimball. The other two were other American Manufactures. The last company to mass produce in the US was the Penley company. They closed their doors in 2002. 


 

The next couple pictures are of the crap foreign pins and their springs compared with the ones I am making.

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## Clay3063 (Mar 7, 2017)

I had a preacher's meeting with other ministers from surrounding towns this morning so I left the house about 8:30 am and drove the hour and 15 minutes to Smithville, TX to spend a couple hours with my brothers of the cloth. As per usual in the life of a minister there are various phone calls and such that must be tended too and today was no exception. On the way home the guys who are updating our sound system said they were on the way so the wife met them at the building until I could arrive and relieve her of her post. Thus I spent the remainder of my day at the church building. So I said all that to say this, what I had planned to do this afternoon did not get done. But I did find a few minutes to got out to the shop and rip into clothes pin halves about half of the flitches. I am pleased with them thus far. There are a few rejects as I expect there to be but all in all not a bad batch. I'll finish the rest in the morning and then put them in a pillow case and toss the whole thing into the dryer with no heat and make them sand themselves. It will take a couple hours. Once they are sanded then I will put them in a large heavy duty plastic bag along with 4 or 5 small strips of cotton rags soaked in linseed oil and then put the bag back into the pillow case and back into the dryer without heat for another hour or so. Then I will inspect, cull and assemble the pins.

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## Wildthings (Mar 7, 2017)

Ahhh Smithville!! Gots lots of teenage memories from there and quite a few in-laws living there

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## woodtickgreg (Mar 7, 2017)

I just found this thread, very cool indeed!

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## Tony (Mar 8, 2017)

Great thread Clay! Tony

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## Clay3063 (Mar 9, 2017)

Finished cutting the rest of the clothes pin halves today. I didn't count them but they filled a LFRB to full. From there I put them in the dryer on air dry and let them tumble with a couple towels until they had sanded themselves. (About 2 hours). @ripjack13 , if you do this I would advise you to do like me and get your own dryer to put your clothes pins in or you might find yourself at the bottom of a mulch pile somewhere. 

Once they were nice and smooth and all the rough edges and little burs were rubbed off, I cut up an old sock and coated the pieces with linseed oil and put that all in the dryer to run for about 45 minutes until the rags were almost dry and the pins had a nice coat of finish on them. Next step is to sort them and then assemble them. I made a little gadget for assembling the pins pretty fast. I'll post picks of it when I start that process. For now, we're almost done.

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## tocws2002 (Mar 9, 2017)

Cool thread, looking forward to the finished products.

-jason

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## Clay3063 (Mar 9, 2017)

And just like that... 450 clothes pin halves are rendered useless and headed to the kindling pile. They say measure twice and cut once. And I always do that. Most of the time more than that. There is no room for error when you are building things like this and a single simple error of a little less than 1/16th of an inch on the third cut means that none of these halves will fit the springs. OH well. I'll post some pics tomorrow of the error I made. A little too flustered to do it tonight. It's been a crappy day almost from the get go. But this error occurred earlier in the week and there wasn't anyway to catch it or fix it after the fact. It is what it is. 13 bd ft of Ash. LOL. Good thing I've got another large board waiting for the bandsaw. I'll post pictures of the pins I made last year to show the end product. TOMORROW.

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## ripjack13 (Mar 9, 2017)

Oh maaaaannnnn......

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## Clay3063 (Mar 9, 2017)

ripjack13 said:


> Oh maaaaannnnn......


Yep. It is what it is. And it has been one of those days for sure. But tomorrow is another day. I take hits like this all the time. Some my fault. Some not. This one was. So I can't complain too much.


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## ripjack13 (Mar 9, 2017)

I'm pretty sure that's not what you said when you found out......
I'm sorry to hear it though. I know that sucks...


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## Clay3063 (Mar 9, 2017)

ripjack13 said:


> I'm pretty sure that's not what you said when you found out......
> I'm sorry to hear it though. I know that sucks...



Being a man of the cloth I hate to admit you're right. But it wasn't too bad. I just found out after I had come in for the day and the day was full of misdeeds already so this was just another brain fart. I'd already pretty much blown the day off before I found out about this.


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## Lou Currier (Mar 9, 2017)

Sorry to hear...great thread will be patiently waiting for the finished project

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## Tony (Mar 10, 2017)

Dang Clay, that truly stinks! We've all done it though...... Tony


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## Clay3063 (Mar 10, 2017)

Tony said:


> Dang Clay, that truly stinks! We've all done it though...... Tony



Yep. i got up this morning and took another look at the pin halves to see what I might have done wrong and the mistake is literally one saw blade width off. I set my fence off the wrong side of the blade. Were it any other cut but the one for the spring ends it would not have mattered that much. 1/16th of an inch. One stinking 16th of an inch. LOL. Now I am sitting here trying to think of something useful to use these things for other than to use them for kindling. Actually it's 3/32" but what's a 32nd among friends?

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## Clay3063 (Mar 10, 2017)

Does anyone have a crafty wife or know of some other crafty person who knows what a clothes pin halve can be used for?


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## Tony (Mar 10, 2017)

Can you rebend the springs so they fit?


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## Clay3063 (Mar 10, 2017)

Tony said:


> Can you rebend the springs so they fit?



No sir. Stainless steel. Thick wire. These are made in America not china and as such have quite a bit of heft to them. There is a company in up state New York that custom makes these springs for Herrick Kimball who then resells them to the small group of artisans who are making these pins. 
One would need a machine of some sort to do that on a mass production scale. Trying to do it one at a time would be very time consuming and difficult.

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## Tony (Mar 10, 2017)

Clay3063 said:


> No sir. Stainless steel. Thick wire. These are made in America not china and as such have quite a bit of heft to them. There is a company in up state New York that custom makes these springs for Herrick Kimball who then resells them to the small group of artisans who are making these pins.
> One would need a machine of some sort to do that on a mass production scale. Trying to do it one at a time would be very time consuming and difficult.



Well, that sucks then...

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## Clay3063 (Mar 10, 2017)

Yes sir. I'll get some more made in a few days. Lord willing. I got a special order last night for a Serviceman's Shadow box, to display his flag, ribbons and medals. So I'll be working on that in the next little bit. Wedding coming up in two weeks. Youngest daughter. Then I'll be done with weddings. (Lord gave me 3 of em... and a wife... and a neutered dog. Needless to say it's a wonder I have any semblance of manliness left. Hoping to regain some soon.)

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## Clay3063 (Mar 17, 2017)

OK!!! Round two. Attempt number two for the year. I found a box of flitches that I had not finished from last year. Not as many as I messed up the first go round this year, but almost. So I finished milling the various grooves in the flitches and decided that I was going to rebuild the flitch sled. The flitch sled is the device that holds the flitches in place while you cut the last two bevels on the pins, just before you cut them into individual halves. I had been using visegrip "C" Clamps but I really didn't like that as there was two much to do with just two hands and still keep the flitches square on the sled and then prevent the clamps from sliding too far down and perhaps hit the blade. I have not hit the blade... yet. And I really didn't want to in the future so I added stationary locking toggle clamps to the sled. And it worked like a charm. Not only did it exceed my expectations for clamping ease but it also cut my beveling time per flitch by more than 50%. Between the new push block and the revised flitch sled I have now reduced the work load and time require to machine each flitch by a considerable margin, though it is still a very tedious project. So without further ado here are the pictures for today. First up, pictures of the flitch sled the way it used to be. Then the revised sled with the toggle clamps. Then a pic of the flitches ready to be cut into halves. I have them cut into halves already and in the old clothes dryer to tumble polish them. I'll take more pics once they are tumbled / sanded and then one of them after the linseed oil is put on and then a couple or three pics of the assembly process. - Clay

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## Clay3063 (Mar 17, 2017)

And............ we have clothespins!

Cut all the pin halves. tumbled them and then applied the linseed oil. Tested to make sure these fit as advertised and now I am putting them together. I have a hundred springs left and will have to order more after the wedding. But, they turned out very good this time. 1st and 3rd time were the charm. That second batch was close but no cigar! And with that, this is the end of the tutorial in pictures of my clothespin hobby.

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## ripjack13 (Mar 17, 2017)

Awesome. That's a cool lil jig to fit the springs.

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## Clay3063 (Mar 17, 2017)

ripjack13 said:


> Awesome. That's a cool lil jig to fit the springs.


Thanks Marc. That's an awesome little gootee you got there. LOL! That litl jig saves the heck out of your fingers when it comes to putting these things together.

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## ripjack13 (Mar 17, 2017)

That pic is old, but the only one I had for st Patricks day festivies.

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## Clay3063 (Mar 17, 2017)

And that's what a hundred clothespins looks like. I had about half a box of halves left but I only had a hundred springs left over from last year. I need to order more but gonna have to wait until after the wedding next week.

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## woodtickgreg (Mar 18, 2017)

Very cool thread, thanks for doing it!

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