Mangled.

I've been looking at this hand clothes wringer, and I went looking for the owner of the company who sells them, Get Prepared Stuff.


His name is Grant, and he was extremely responsive to my questions and comments. Here is what he says about the wringer:

Thanks Roxanne,

The wringer is a good product and I've sold a lot of them unfortunately the cost is rather high and the two people that have commented were those that had less than stellar experiences with it.

The wringer is made in the USA from a design that hasn't changed in close to 80+ years. As far as a wringer goes it works quite well but the problem many have is that it doesn't work well on certain clothes such as jeans, overalls or other such clothing items that have buttons, zippers, snaps that bind up on the wringers rollers and prevent them from really "squishing" the water out around those areas of the clothing.

Wringing is a two step process where you run the clothing item through once to get a good amount of water out and then you tighten down the wringer even more and run the clothing through a second time which gets the most water out. This second time through is essential but it is the hardest to do for jeans and those types of clothing mentioned earlier because the tightness of the rollers prevent those clothing articles from going through without loosening the rollers over the rough spots.

The other problem with wringing is the stable and firm platform needed to clamp the wringer onto. When you tighten the rollers as tight as they should be the resistance to turning the handle on the wringer is quite stiff and it takes a good amount of torque to turn the handle. If the wringer is clamped down to a simple galvanized tub or other flimsy surface which doesn't provide enough rigidity to be able "put your back into" turning the handle you'll not be able to tighten the rollers down enough to get the most water out of the clothes.

There was one comment that a little clip would come off a pressure plate on the clamps foot and this is a known problem that can occur if you are moving the wringer around or clamping it on and then taking it off it's location. I've discussed this with the manufacturer and they are working on a redesign to hopefully fix the problem. The issue is that when unscrewing the clamp the pressure plate if it's at an angle can bind up with the "E" clip and twists the clip right off the end of the screw. If your wringer is not left on a fixed location this would be more of a problem because of all the clamping and unclamping than if it was left affixed to a single location.

That's the wringer in a nut shell.

If you have anything else I can help you with feel free to ask anytime.

Best regards,

-grant

I'm not positive that this is the right product for our needs, simply because I won't have that type of stationary object to clamp it to, and it seems to need that stability in order to put a shoulder into the job. But I like his style and his willingness to spend this much time explaining a product to one person. I didn't feel sold-to, and I'd like to think his responsiveness would extend to issues with purchased products.