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While at the 2019 National Hardware Show In Las Vegas, we ran across a company called Heroclip®. Their slogan is – Hang Your Stuff, Free Your HandsTM. They gave me three of their carabiner style multi-clips (Medium, Small, Mini) to give them a try in the gardening environment.
Have you ever wanted to hang a gardening tool bag, Tub Trug, bucket, watering can, hose, basket, or any number of gardening or landscaping implements so that you can work on your project without having to hold onto these items while you’re using another tool? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to hang your tool off a shelf, a door handle, a rack, a tree or shrub branch?
Now you can with the Heroclip®. Having an articulated hook with an attached clip solves all these challenges and a lot more.
PACKAGING
All the Heroclips® come packaged on a slick pegboard-ready placard. It is printed on both sides and the clips are secured with cable ties. It’s a nice, neat package with plenty of ideas for how to use the clips stamped on the back of the card.
HOW the Heroclip WORKS
The folks at Heroclip® designed a nifty device that they call the Hybrid Gear Clip. It’s basically the combination of a carabiner (a fancy name for a piece of metal formed into a loop with a spring retention bar called a “gate”) with a 3600 swivel hook.
By pushing the gate toward the inside of the carabiner, the outer hook can be rotated 900 away from the carabiner and swung up on the nylon composite swivel bar to be positioned as the hook. To aid in its versatility, the hook can be rotated 3600 to accommodate virtually any hanging position, while the carabiner (with the spring gate closed) remains permanently attached to whatever it is clipped to.
Essentially, what you have here is a carabiner with a hook that rotates and pivots back and forth parallel to the carabiner. But if you don’t open the swivel hook, you have a conventional carabiner that can be used to attach gear permanently (for example, to clip a water bottle to a backpack).
The tip (or “beak” as Heroclip® calls it) of the hook has a rubber-like compound that’s made to “grip almost any surface”. And the body of the swivel is made to move up and down through an 1800 arc on the back of the carabiner.
Rustproof and Corrosion-Resistant
All the rivets that hold the unit together are made from high carbon steel with a nickel plating, the hook and carabiner mechanisms are made from aircraft grade anodized aluminum, the swivel is made from a nylon composite mix, and the gate is manufactured from stainless steel. All the components make the unit corrosion resistant. But be careful using it around fertilizers as these can be very corrosive and damage the Heroclip® if it’s exposed to those substances.
What Can You Use It For?
There are almost endless uses for the Heroclip® in the garden (not to mention everyday use).
Some of my favorite uses are holding up a Tub Trug on the side of a raised metal container (when deadheading and pruning), hanging my gardening tool bag on a door handle near my gardening bench (since my bench is covered with potting mix, tools, and pots), and hanging up my Maine Hod (vegetable/fruit basket) when picking crops from my elevated greenhouse-like Vegepod.
This is also a great invention to help gardeners who have trouble bending over. You can use it to hang gear from raised planters, the edge of a wheelbarrow, trellises, a belt loop, and so much more. The options are almost endless.
3 Sizes for Any Application
The Heroclip® comes in three sizes (medium, small and mini). I tested all three and found that I used the small most often. But I did find uses for the mini as well (such as hanging 5 gallon buckets on raised beds and wire trellises). And I used the medium Heroclip® to hang a hose from a trellis to keep it off tender plants below as I watered plants farther down the line.
Which size you use really depends on what application suits the Heroclip® and if you plan on keeping the clip permanently attached to whatever you’re hanging. Personally, I’d own at least one of each size.
The clips come in a multitude of colors. I requested red for my review as this is a color that can be seen well in the garden.
WARRANTY
Heroclip®states that their products are “built to last. We stand behind every product we ship and work hard to set right any wrongs you may experience with Heroclip®.”
RECOMMENDATIONS
What can I say, I love the Heroclip® and I absolutely recommend it. Although it’s not something you’d normally think of as a “gardening tool”, there are so many uses for it in the garden. And if you want to hang grocery bags off your shopping cart (or any number of other uses), just take them out of the gardening environment and use them in other applications. I now carry one on my keychain – just in case.
I like that they are made from high quality materials, are rugged, and built to last. The fit and finish is excellent (no sharp corners or misaligned parts). The aircraft-grade aluminum is anodized (not painted, so it won’t chip). The swing/rotating arm is a nylon composite mix, making if very strong. The rivets are nickel-plated (which retards corrosion) high carbon steel. The gate is stainless steel making it rustproof. All up, the Heroclip® is corrosion resistant and ready for outdoor use.
A novel idea, you bet. When it’s not a hooking carabiner, its’s a straight carabiner (for applications where you don’t need a hook and need more of a traditional carabiner).
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