“Grip Clips;
Hello,
I think your grip clip product may be the kind of thing I’m looking for,
but I’d like to ask you a few questions about my specific application. I
am a graduate student in the School of Natural Resources at the University
of Vermont, working on a scientific research project in which I am
manipulating nutrient inputs to seedlings in pots, through fertilization
to the roots. (I’ll study resultant physiological responses.) Because of
the nutrient treatments, I need to protect the seedlings from rainfall,
but they need to be exposed to more or less normal light and temperature
regimes. We have some steel cables suspended already, left over from a
previous project (imagine three top corner ridges of a long tent). I’d
like to suspend some heavy-duty clear plastic (like greenhouse film) below
the cables. It would normally hang to one side, so that it can be drawn
across (like pulling across a shower curtain-tent) so we can protect the
seedlings quickly when it starts to rain. I’d also attach the bottom
edges to low wires so that the sides wouldn’t blow around in the wind.
I’m having a difficult time describing this without a picture, but
hopefully you have some idea of what I mean. Obviously I couldn’t use
regular grommets, at least along the top ridge, because they’d leak badly.
So, my questions are:
1) Do you think your clips would perform well as the hangers to suspend
the plastic sheet below the wires?
Yes.
2) How sturdy are the little hangers to which the clips are attached? Are
they wire or plastic? I’m sure I’d have to use a different piece that
actually slides across the wire, but I’m wondering whether your clip
connectors/hangers would stand up to the tension this would create.
They should.
3) Do you think these connectors would stand up to the tension stresses
that would result from both wind and rain in this situation?
Yes; you would need to use enough of them to support your cover (how big is it?)
4) Do they perform well when they are *not* under tension (like when my
cover is pulled back for sunny days)?
Yes; once you put them on they stay on unless you take them off.
5) What size clip would you recommend?
Most likely the General Purpose; this depends on the spacings of your covering and what type of film you use.
6) If I ordered a lot (like 30 or 50) could I get a volume discount?
Yes
How
long would it take to get them?
A few days at the most.