Clothes pegs

One of modern man's greatest achievements to date has to be the humble clothes peg.

The design is incredibly simple and the item is very cheap to manufacture - just two pieces of wood or moulded plastic held together with a metal spring. To operate the peg, simply squeeze the top parts together and the bottom part pivots and opens.

The plastic/wood parts of the peg are the most ingenious parts - each part is covered with notches which serve to grip the clothes tightly onto the clothes line. There are also one or two holes in the peg which clamp onto the line. Pegs with two holes usually have different sized holes to allow for lines of different thicknesses.

The spring has been designed such that it's simple and effective; just a length of metal wire wrapped around the bottom part of the peg just below the pivot which closes the peg when relaxed. It's also strong enough to hold most clothing onto the line without it falling off and blowing away in the wind.

All in all an ingenious design.