Initially I was just going to write off this purchase in terms of doing a review because it didn’t work out for the alternate purpose I had intended, but there are definitely other great uses for them so I thought I’d share what did and didn’t work. These are basically two sets of various size but wide rubber bands called the Pro Slip On Grip (via Amazon).
In terms of the sizes of all of the rubber bands, they are all one inch wide, and in their un-stretched state their diameters are as follows: blue is about 2 inches, black is about 1.5 inches, red is 1 inch, and white is a hair shy of .75 inches. My initial thought was to try and use the large blue rubber band as a way to replace the weak elastic strap on some notebooks, but it was actually too strong and made the covers buckle a bit. Luckily though these have been beyond handy for opening tight lids on things, particularly the large blue and black one. The blue came in handy for a tomato sauce jar while you can see where the black one came in handy. Even the smaller red size one was great for getting the cork out of one of those larger 750mL bottles of beer.
Beyond the one time use of opening jars and such, I also found them great for adding a bit of grip to other things like tools or flashlights. In this case my flashlight (the Coast HP17TAC 885 lumen via Amazon) was the perfect place for the smaller red rubber band. Although this metal body flashlight has a subtle cross hatched grip on it, the addition of this simple rubber band makes it MUCH easier to hold without it sliding out of your hand. So bottom line, not great for my kind of hair brained idea of replacing an elastic closure for a notebook, but GREAT to have around the house for opening things and adding extra grip to things, which is kind of their original purpose. Grab yourself a package of the Pro Slip On Grip (via Amazon) and make your life a little easier, just don’t let these super strong rubber bands crush your notebook cover like this dummy did.
©2016, Brian Greene. All rights reserved.
