Spider Stakes--Problems

[Charlie J]

I've recently started carrying spider stakes instead of the ugly h-wire stakes for yard signs. I sold five to a customer last friday and she came in today saying that they all broke.

We've had some pretty bad weather here lately so I figured maybe the high winds have been causing these things to break.

Anyone else had this problem??

 

[petesign]

I just went through the same exact problem. I'm going to end up giving the customer credit for the stakes and see if we can find a solution to the flimsy aluminum h-stake for yard signs that doesnt cost a fortune. I was really hoping the spider stake was the answer.

 

[Flame]

Same thing here. Thought they were more attractive than the H wire ones, first ten signs came back within a week. All broken.

 

[Pat Whatley]

Something changed with the stakes a couple of months ago. When we first started using them the things were almost bulletproof. We bent our first sample spider stake in half testing it....the plastic stretched, and turned gray before finally "tearing" where we'd bent it. The new stakes will snap in two if you bend them.

Plus, maybe we've just been getting bad batches of stakes but the casting has been ridiculously bad. Sometimes there is as much as 3/4" of overflowed plastic around the foot.

Don't get me wrong, I ordered 500 of them today, I just wish the quality was still what it was.

 

[dhamlett15]

Ive had broken ones also about 3 months ago all with 18x24 I have a few that I have not had a call back about the was just with a 12x18 sign on them

 

[cajun312]

I sold a lot of those last fall for the elections, had a lot of complaints, if the customer didn't break the tip while sticking it in the ground, the wind would snap them higher up.

 

[rfulford]

Same here. Our clients were breaking them. H stakes get bent all the time but it does not destroy them and they never come back. Usually, people will just bend them back into shape and install them more carefully or find a softer spot.

The step on the side of the stake is some of the problem. It looks more sturdy than it is and people really try to drive them home.

 

[Pat Whatley]

This post reminded me that I'd meant to contact them and ask it they'd changed the plastic formula or something since the "brittle" problem was new to us.

Here's the response I got...

Our Spider-Stakes are molded from 100% re-processed glass reinforced plastic. The material we use is derived from ground up 1st run (blemished) parts and gates/sprue's left over from the injection molding process. While unsuitable for parts that require a pristine appearance, the recycled material available to us is well suited to our Spider-Stake production and allows us to offer our Spider-Stake at a competitive price.

The quality of the reprocessed plastic materials we receive from our main supplier has proven to be reliably consistent. On rare occasion however, we have experienced a brief streak of an inconsistency in the bulk (re-ground) material. To completely (as in 100%) avoid this thankfully rare occurrence would amount to "finding a needle in the proverbial haystack" so we have to accept the risk associated with using recycled materials. Considering the fact that we've produced well over a million Spider-Stakes in the past ten months the breakage issue accounts for a very small percentage of production.

I hope this answers your concern.

Gary Moshluk
USA Sign Frame and Stake, Inc.


Made enough sense to me. I think it's a fair enough trade off...Spider Stakes are cheap, better stakes aren't. I'm willing to risk having to replace some periodically for the cost.

 

[Firefox]

Bringing back this old thread!

Has this been worked out or are the Spider Stakes still having problems?

 

[Charlie J]

Bringing back this old thread!

Has this been worked out or are the Spider Stakes still having problems?

Good question! I haven't used them since my original post.

 

[Pat Whatley]

I still use a lot of them and I'm happy with them. Occasionally I hear that one has broken but for the short term use they were designed for I haven't had any major complaints. When this first came up I'd open a box of 50 and there would be 10 broken ones in the box. I can't remember the last time I had that happen, they've all been good.

 

[HDvinyl]

I have many that the wires are crooked...

I leave those for the politicians.






Seriously though, bent wires cause havoc on coro.

 

[FireSprint.com]

We recently pulled them from our catalog. We still stock a few, but we had too many complaints about them.

We have a few customers that like them, but the fast majority try them once and come running back to the standard H frames.

They do look nicer and they are at a similar price point. I guess it just depends on the amount of wind and how hard the soil is.