We wash out our Ziploc freezer bags...and reuse them. Cheap?...you bet!!
I got tired of letting them sit in the drain rack...and never drain quite right because they don't open up for the air to get inside.
So...
I built a SOPHISTICATED dryer for them!
Took a piece of wood about 6" x 18"...glued and tacked 6 spring-loaded clothes pins on it...glued and tacked the board to the inside of the basement door...which is next to the kitchen sink.
Now...after the bags are washed...they get hung upside down on the 'bag' pins. Hang them at nite...dry in the morning.
If you need detailed plans on this project, I can email a set to you...for $149.50...plus shipping. Senior discount available! :)
Will the plans have detailed information? We need to know what type of wood, what type of glue and how ot finish it. Will it work insde of a pantry door?
I use a Tilia Foodsaver Vaccum sealer. The bags are made to be re-usable and we do. I generally invert th e bag over a bottle to keep it open to vent. Nothing wrong with saving money.
I gotta be real honest...and I don't do this with everybody. But I could really use the $149.50. So...
Just take the plans I'll send you for the $149.50. Double the width dimensions. Mark the center...and cut it. Whah la...a PAIR of these!!
I usually charge another $49.50 for that info...but I feel generous today.
The plans really are pretty flexible. You can make the hanger for 6 bags...or you can make it for 36 bags (if you have a really wide door). The plans are simple enough so that you can adapt them to your situation pretty easily.
For instance, I sold the plans to our country jail...and they found a way to put the holder on their steel doors without actually nailing them.
Take your wife out to dinner with the $149.50 you just saved!
This project has been tested with every kind of wood known to man, Ed...except balsa.
Because of its intended use with water-laden objects, I recommend exterior glue...any brand. The prototype was made with Elmer's.
We suggest 6 coats of exterior poly. But, if you have black interior doors, you can also use spray automobile undercoating. You just need to cover the pin springs when you spray.
Although one CIA agent reported he had good luck doing this (he didn't mention the country he used it in), the hanger has not been tested on pantry doors. If you decide to use it on those kinds of doors, you'll void your 1 hour warranty.
That's what gave me the idea! lol I had bags opened up and sitting on top of all my wife's nick naks. Actually, SHE suggested that I come up an invention!!!
Of course, you CAN build one of these without my plans. But I wouldn't suggest it, of course!
Okay, I told this story over in the binary abpw but I guess I'll tell it again. (Okay, actually, I'll copy and paste). I refer to posting pix, and if anybody wants to see them, I can repost them over at abpw.
The story as it was told then:
So, my father-in-law is a retired wheat farmer who has more money than God's rich uncle. I was, thus, very surprised to see that he was so frugal that he reused plastic Ziploc baggies. After use, he would wash them out and dry them on a special rack which was basically a flat plate with four or six dowels of different lengths protruding as prongs to drape the baggies over. I, of course, spent the past several years making cruel fun of him for this habit. That's just the kind of son-in-law I am. So last Christmas, he was reaaaallllly excited to give me my present. Made me open it first. Couldn't wait. You've of course figured out by now that my present was my very own baggie drying rack that he had had a woodworking buddy make for me. That's just the kind of father-in-law he is.
Well, this generosity couldn't go unpunished, so for Father's Day, I made him what you see in the attached pix. It's about 13x13x8, give or take. The box is made of MDF, the top crosspieces out of some scrap alder I had laying around. The top is screened off with window screen under the cross pieces. The rosettes are prefab Lowe's or Home Depot three dollar specials. Prefab molding, too. The eagle used to be a brass coat hook, but I snapped off the hooks and layered it in about 10 layers of gold from a rattlecan.
(let me jump in here, since the pix aren't posted with this message, and say that it was a white cabinet, with feet. Molding around each side to give it a Colonial look, and rosettes on three sides, with a big brass eagle on the fourth) (back to the story)
Inside the box is a powerful turntable motor from what used to be a high end German turntable, attached to which is a small wooden propeller. When you plug this sucker in and turn it on, any baggies that might be draped on the dowels immediately fly off the dowels and up in the air.
The whole thing, including paint, probably took a total twelve or fifteen hours over the course of a week or so, and is by far the most ridiculous, least useful, most impractical project I've ever done. And, of course, by far the most fun also. That's just the kind of son-in-law I am.
He took it back up to Almira, WA (wheat country) and showed it off to half the town over coffee.
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