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Hinged Ice Tray

 The best of two bad ideas.
  (+6)
(+6) 		  [vote for,
against]

Rigid ice cube trays are great! They're easy to fill and carry over to the freezer without spilling, even one-handed! Until it comes time to get the ice out, wherupon you have to go through some fascinating gyrations.

Flexible ice cube trays are great! You can get the ice out with no trouble at all! Except then you have to refill it, and half the time the tray bends in half and splooshes all over the floor while you're trying to put it back.

Solution: Split the difference! Put a thin flexible liner inside, and this is the clever bit, a traditional rigid tray but with *hinges* down the middle of each row, so you can just fold the side down and pluck out cubes at your lesiure. (The liner is required to keep water from leaking through the hinges or out the sides before it freezes.)

—gisho, Mar 10 2009

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       What you fail to realize is that your hinges aren't going to impart any force to the cube/tray interface when you bend them, so you'll never wiggle the cube free. Unless, somehow, bending the hinge pulls on your liner and lifts the cube out. Is that whats going on?? I like the idea of a liner, or better yet, just a simple flap cover over the top of your tray to prevent spillage and icy shardy messiness when you start breaking the cubes up.
—daseva, Mar 10 2009
   

       [Dasevra], the idea is that the hinges are on the bottom of the tray, and you bend the side down, pulling the tray away from the ice.
—gisho, Mar 10 2009
   

       Gisho, the hinges don't help dislodge the ice. How do they help? They don't. You have hinged sections that are all moving around nice and independently, but there's no mechanism to force the ice away from the walls.   

       You can open and close a door all day long, but nothing falls of the door until you slam it. I can't be any more clear?   

       Also, do the hinges lock somehow, or do they only bend up? Problem being: hinged sections falling limp as you hold the tray, spilling all the water. I'm not sold on the hinges [gisho]. And without a picture this is going to get hairy trying to discuss the exact design.
—daseva, Mar 10 2009
   

       not too convinced about the waterprooficity of this thing; also note that the ice will stick to the sides of their trays making opening the hinge pretty difficult.
—FlyingToaster, Mar 10 2009
   

       "I can't be any more clear?"
I don't know, but it seems to me you don't understand the idea.
The hinges aren't between the cups, but integral to the basin thereof. Holding both ends of the tray keeps the individual cups (and therefore the tray) intact. Once frozen, pulling back on either end of the tray would allow the individual cups to split (via the hinges), releasing the ice.
—phoenix, Mar 10 2009
   

       Oooh. nice. Well, waterproofing is a minor concern. +
—daseva, Mar 10 2009
   

       a bun for splooshes.
—k_sra, Mar 10 2009
   

       Thanks, [phoenix]. I usually get it, but not today apparently. Author uses one scentence to describe the hinge. Hmm.
—daseva, Mar 10 2009
   

       You could just put a flat tray under the flexible ice cube tray, but that isn't any fun.
—saprolite, Mar 10 2009
   

       not sure exactly what kind of tray you're talking about: I've a plastic, very slightly flexible tray which works fine and has never spontaneously folded in half or anything. Despite generally liking old methods, I find it beats the hell out of the old metal trays for convenience.
—FlyingToaster, Mar 10 2009
   


 

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