How clothespins are made

A spring clothespin is two wooden jaws and a single bent wire that works as both spring and hinge.

stations: 7
things upstream: 27
raw sources: 12
steps from the ground: 6

The short version

A spring clothespin is two small wooden jaws and a coil of steel wire. Hardwood boards are planed thin, cut into short blanks and machined with grips and notches. The blanks are ripped into halves and tumbled smooth. A machine bends wire into a spring, and the jaws are fitted together around the coil.

Plane boards and crosscut

Dried hardwood boards are planed thin, then crosscut into short blanks as long as a pin. Waste lumber fed the old Vermont factories.

Goes in
Lumber
Machine the grips and notches

Saws and routers cut grip grooves and the notch that will seat the spring across each blank, so one blank holds the profile of many jaws.
Rip out the halves

The mouth and handle ends are ripped at a slight angle, then final cuts slice the blank into separate jaws.
Tumble them smooth

The jaws tumble together so the sharp edges rub each other round. Some makers add an oil-dampened cloth for a finish.
Coil the spring

Steel wire is bent into one spring with a loop in the middle. The loop is the coiled fulcrum, the part that lets the two halves rock like a seesaw, and the two arms push the jaws shut.

Goes in
Steel wire
Clip the jaws on

The spring is opened and the two jaws slide into its arms, so the coil seats in the notches. Machines do this in factories, and small shops do it by hand.
Count and pack

Finished pins are counted into bags or boxes.

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Worth repeating

David M. Smith of Vermont invented the two-prong spring clothespin in 1853, and Solon Moore improved it in 1887 with a single-wire coiled fulcrum.
The New York Times called Vermont "The Silicon Valley of Clothespin Manufacturing".
Clothespin making was once a Romani craft in England, using small split lengths of willow or ash.