Omnidirectional Snow Scraper
By Benjamen Johnson
Deep in the throes of winter, this interesting little scraper caught our eye. Normally your windshield scraper only scrapes in one direction, but this orbital ice scraper from Carrand — think Mr. Clean — lets you maximize your efforts by scraping in any direction. Any tool that gets you out of the cold faster and into your warming car is worth a look.
From what we can interpret from the sparse instructions, you grip the handle and move the scraper back and forth while lightly pressing down. Here’s where we get a little confused: Evidently the bottom of the scraper also has a prism tooth for “collapsing the ice” — whatever that means. Probably there’s a row of teeth on the bottom just like there’s usually a row of teeth on the back of a regular scraper, and you press harder on the scraper to engage them, but that’s our interpretation.
Regularly $12, you can try this scraper for $7 shipped from Meritline with the coupon code A4011915. The coupon code expires Jan 10th, 2009.
Orbital Ice Scraper [Carrand]
Orbital Ice Scraper [Meritline]
December 31st, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I still find that the best tool for clearing ice is your basic 99c cheapie 4-sided flat plastic scraper. One side has the metal blade, one side has the ice buster, one side has a squeegie and the short side has the wiper blade cleaner.
December 31st, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I guess I have short arms because without some sort of handle I’d never reach very far across the windshield with this thing. Looks like a good concept though.
December 31st, 2008 at 7:54 pm
I just scored three of these at the dollar store for stocking stuffers.
A plastic flower pot, 4′-5″, works well too.
January 1st, 2009 at 10:17 pm
This is a pointless tool. We clearanced these out after half a season two years ago, and still had a few that we gave away as gifts this year. I agree on the cheap scraper! I have one extendable scraper with a brush on one side and a scraper with a removable squeegee on the other, and a small, cheap, hard plastic scraper that I use on harder ice build-up.
January 1st, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Looks like it has no leverage nor reach. With my generic one-directional scraper on a stick, I can clear my entire car of ice in about 4 minutes, so I don’t see the point of getting one of these.
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:05 am
Why is this tool here seriously? Aside from the horrible reach and non-leverage, I can just picture the cramps from gloved hands trying to use this thing (you’ll never use this thing without gloves unless you could have scraped it off with a credit card in the first place).
December 17th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
This thing is great. I have one that I got in a discount bin a couple of years ago…I would not do winter without it. It does not work great for snow, but for ice and frost, this thing can’t be beat.
Uthor…it used to take me 4 minutes to scrape my windows…now it only takes 30 seconds. I’m done quick, out of the cold, and onto my heated seats. Awesome tool.