Clothes Hanger - Unintended Uses

Unintended Uses

Wire is versatile, and wire clothes hangers are often used as cheap sources of semi-tough wire, more available than baling wire for all sorts of home projects. The use of wire clothes hangers for use as makeshift welding rod has been common for nearly 100 years. Similarly, many similar do-it-yourself and children's projects use wire hangers as holders of various types, from keeping a brake caliper from hanging by the brake line during auto repair work, to securing a gate on a bird cage. After sanding, wire hangers also find uses as conducting wire for uses as varied as hot wiring cars to games to testing hand steadiness. They were commonly used to gain forcible entry into 20th century automobiles whose locks and entry systems are not protected from such methods. And there is a long history of using wire coat hangers as replacement car radio antennas.

Collecticus magazine reported in October 2007 that clothes hangers have now become collectible, especially those with a famous company or event advertised across the front. For example, a 1950 Butlins hanger sold for £10.10 in October 2006 within Collecticus.

In 1995, Professor Angus Wallace used an unfolded coathanger, sterilised with brandy, to perform emergency surgery on the collapsed lung of Paula Dixon in an airliner at 35,000 feet.