I get some interesting questions in our email in-box. This was one such email from a reader.
They love using a Filofax organiser, but due to a slight disability in their hands they find the tabs very hard to operate to open the rings.
We all know that you shouldn't tug the rings open with your fingers, this can lead to ring gaps on one pair of rings or more, so it isn't really an alternative method to using the tabs.
If you look in detail the tabs as they are pushed down, push up on the two ring halves to open them. Sort of a 'see-saw' action. Simple but effective, but there's no way to make it easier to push down, unless you welded a longer piece of metal on to the tabs to increase the leverage, but then the tabs would stick out of the Filofax, so not really desirable.
Looking at the Filofax 'Clipbook' The ring mechanism used doesn't have tabs. To open the rings you pull the covers apart. This works because the rings loop through the cover and as you pull the covers apart with the Clipbook open it applies an even pressure on each ring halve to open it.
My first suggestion was to adapt this idea for normal Filofax organisers using plastic dividers punched and inserted in to the pages and then pull them apart to open the rings. But you would be griping a fairly thin bit of plastic and you would have to grip it quite tightly for it to work.
Next, I suggested looping cords around the rings so again you could pull them apart easily. This might work, but there might still be a risk of the top and bottom ring pairs being strained.
If you pulled from the central part of the loop as well as the part that emerges from the top and bottom of the rings then that would even out the pressure a bit. (I've not tried this yet!)
Do any of you have any better ideas on how to solve this problem. Please comment below if you do.
Thank you.
The approaches are already very good, I think they only need to be evolved.
ReplyDeleteA simple attempt would be to loop the cord through the middle ring of each group only. This will pull at the central points of each group.
The next idea would be to use a strip of plastic and punch both sides, then loop the cord through the other side of the strip. The plastic should be rigid, so maybe glue two or three layers together.
Or try something similar to these package carrying handles that were used on twine-bound shopping boxes. Again, best attached to the middle rings of each group.
Hans