Materials

The jar in question is an empty 190g jar from Douwe Egberts instant coffee.

(I wouldn't normally mention a specific brand name, except that the jar design is fairly unique to this brand).

The distinctive features of this jar are that it has a thick, unthreaded rim and a push-fitting glass lid with a flexible plastic gasket.

It's already a fairly useful storage jar for many purposes, but for preserves and pickles, a wire clip is often preferred, to keep the thing very firmly closed - so let's see if we can make one...

A standard wire coat hanger should provide just enough wire to make the clip.

I actually ended up using a second one because some of the construction process required a bit of trial and error.

I made a wire ring the right size to clip around the jar, just under the lip of the rim.

A small wire loop will be forced onto the open ends to pull the ring tight into place.

With the ring clamped in place, the down-turned ends are ready to receive one part of the clip mechanism.

The other part of the mechanism will be secured to the square loop on the opposite side.

One side of the clip mechanism is a stout hook - bent at nearly 90 degrees in the middle and formed with small loops at the end.

(These loops hook onto the down-turned ends of the wire ring secured to the jar).

The other side of the mechanism is a bent loop that affixes to the square protrusion on the jar ring.

The hook from the coat hanger is in turn connected to this bent loop - in such way that it hinges freely.

To close the jar, the two angled pieces of wire are flipped over the lid; the hooked part engages with the hinged base of the coat hanger hook - the action of turning this into an upright position pulls everything tight.

Here's the finished storage jar. I actually don't have many suitable places in my kitchen to hang such a thing - so this project was more of an exercise in curiosity than practicality, however, in an old-fashioned style kitchen with lots of drying racks and cup hooks, this sort of thing could be useful.

For my own use though, I might try making a more conventional style clip top jar...

Next

This project was just an idle experiment to try to make a novelty item that preserved the hook motif of the coat hanger that was used to make it.

Next, I think I will use the techniques I learned here to make a more conventional clip top jar from the same materials.