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I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

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Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#411

Theres something so refreshing about these videos by makers (also adam savage, mark rober, lots of others) where they just emphasize how many failed attempts it takes before they end up with something "less terrible". Makes everyone seem so... human :)

StuffMadeHere (https://www.youtube.com/@StuffMadeHere) is one of my favorites in this regard.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#412
post #102

Her Truckla video is hilarious but serious at the same time ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKv_N0IDS2A

Imagine my surprise when, after watching Truckla all those years ago, I saw the Cyber Truck's design. Simone literally put the design on a platter for Tesla and they managed to not only screw it up, they still haven't made it four years later.

A model 3 (or maybe model y) platform-based truck would be incredible

edit: I've been told they're the same platform

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#413
post #336

Seems like they won’t work without the special notched rod with evenly spaced grooves.

Why not?

I obviously haven’t tried it, but the video does not show the new hanger being used on the old rod that was implied to be the initial goal of the project. Instead, they only show the hanger being used on rods with special grooves or notches cut into it. Making such a special rod seems to be a lot of work, and I assume that they wouldn’t do that unless it was necessary. But most importantly, it seems to me that the hanger would just collapse if put on a regular smooth rod.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#414
post #101

Love the iteration story, but like, what about pants? And thick winter coats? And stuff I don't want a weird potential fold line slightly to the left/right of centre? Her example rack only contains the clothes that would be perfect for this. My rack and hangers accommodate all my needs with one simple cheap design.

I normally fold my pants in half vertically and over the hanger. How do you normally do this? Some examples here, most of which should work with her hanger size: https://www.wikihow.com/Hang-Pants

I fold the legs together (fold along the zipper, basically) and put them through the hole, which folds them again roughly above the knee.

There's very little room left on the hangar when I do that. Just like in that site's method.

So given a regular hanger will have ~10% of the hanger left empty with pants on it, and the new hanger cuts the continuous length down by 40%, I don't see how it'll be wide enough. Maybe her small person pants fit, but it doesn't seem like mine would.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#415

I just saw the Kickstarter[1]. The margins on these coat hangers look so good that it'd make NVIDIA blush. [1]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/simonegiertz/coat-hinge...

The margins are likely not that great. Small run hardware manufacturing is extremely expensive. It's not until you are doing volumes in the millions, the factory has invested in custom tooling, and you're buying material by the truckload straight from the manufacturer that prices really start to collapse. Right now she is probably getting the steel off the shelf, the plastic pieces from a small shop, the forming from…

Yeah, I worked at one small scale place. Our final products were very expensive (around $5k-$20k, depending on features). The case that the instrument went into cost us almost $150 a pop from a local metal shop, which was (relatively) small and easy to add on to the price of the device, so the customer barely noticed anyway. Of course, we had people who'd worked in mass-produced ventures who complained constantly that it would be so much cheaper in large batches. They projected $5-15 per case, if only we sold in bulk, of course we didn't so it was lunch talk for years. They knew why we didn't bother for more “molded” parts made in China and such, but still never let it go. :)

My guess however is that within a few months if this goes semi-viral is there will be $1 versions from ali-express after they get a little time to play around. Obviously they won't be manufactured as well, but they likely will be good enough to fool some people into buying them and working for a few months before they wear out

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wooden hangers retail for around €1 here, and it's ~2.5x cheaper if you look at AliExpress. Note that both are retail, the wholesale prices are probably half of that. €19 for a hanger is ridiculously expensive, even if they're individually hand made. Granted it includes shipping, but even if shipping is 50% of the cost, it's still absurdly expensive. She mentions in the video that the plastic pieces are injection mou…

> €19 for a hanger is ridiculously expensive €19 for a hanger is the wrong way to look at this. There's no useful application where you'd buy a single hanger. This appears to simply be a way to provide people that want to toss €19 of support to someone they like doing something cool a little something in return. The 12 hanger package is $75, which makes the per-hanger cost of $6.25 still a bit high, but well within a…

or just to try it out. But that, like it, and then buy in bulk. I have seen some -massive' amounts of cloths stuff in closets.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#419
post #27

Isn't the point of a coat hanger to hang your clothes uncrumpled? If you're compromising on that aspect, wouldn't wall hooks fit most use cases? For places where space is at a premium a normal coat hanger on a telescopic rod would be a viable alternative in many cases, i.e. have the clothes rotate almost 90°, and mostly overlap. You can also stack the coat hangers vertically, e.g. with cheap plastic brackets like the…

This won't crumple anything other than the most rigid/starchy of clothes.

Re: I spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]

#420

Theres something so refreshing about these videos by makers (also adam savage, mark rober, lots of others) where they just emphasize how many failed attempts it takes before they end up with something "less terrible". Makes everyone seem so... human :)

StuffMadeHere ( https://www.youtube.com/@StuffMadeHere ) is one of my favorites in this regard.

Don't forget I did a thing https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJLZe_NoiG0hT7QCX_9vmqw
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