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YKK Garbage
sherwindu wrote:
Diaper pins Dennis Pogson wrote: Rosalie B. wrote: sherwindu wrote: Dennis Pogson wrote: sherwindu wrote: I have several 8VS zippers on my boat cover, which was made for me about 5 years ago. The teeth and sliders of this zipper are in excellent shape, but the pin and boxes have dried out and disintegrated. The pin and box is the small item at the start of the zipper to guide the slider on. I am told this item is integral to the zipper and cannot be repaired. I think YKK's recent fix for this problem of using UV resistant zippers is not necessarily the best fix, but the only choice in using a YKK system. Years ago YKK zippers had a removable pin and box piece that could be attached if the original one broke, but now everything is one piece to save costs. Although YKK hints at paying for the material costs of new zippers, labor could cost me as much as 35 dollars each to replace and I have over 20 zippers on this cover. Sherwin D. The zippers with large teeth do not need the end stops moulded into the zip tape. I worked in the trade before retiring and bought the zipper in rolls of 100m and the sliders separately. The stopper at the end of these large zippers can be simply a piece of zip tape sewn horizontally thru the teeth and triple-tacked. The teeth are soft p[alstic and an industrial sewing machine will punch right thru them, but a domestic machine would need a little coaxing, or if you are stuck a sailmakers needle and palm can be used. Perhaps there is come confusion here about which end of my zippers is failing. It is the starting end when trying to begin closing it, not the end which stops the zipper after it has closed the opening. I thought he addressed both the starting ends and what to do if you didn't want it to separate all the way.. FWIW, If the bottom end of a zipper fails, and I don't want the slide to go all the way down and come off, I put a safety pin across just before the end. What a jolly good idea! I think most people think that having a moulded starter on a large-toothed zipper is essential. It isn't. If you can find some way of stopping the tape from fraying, it's easy to feed the zipper into the slider, so long as you get the correct end to start off with, which can usually be learned by looking closely at the teeth. A zipper can only be opened one way, unless brute force is used, then it's goodbye zipper! Obviously it's much nicer to have a plastic moulding sliding into a "garage", but in a marine environment these should always be of the plastic variety, not the cheap alloy which so many manufacturers use, which corrodes like hell and is impossible to get the salt out of, even by boiling. Check out your (expensive) sailing jacket and you'll see what I mean. Makers of "sausage type" racing sailbags get round the open-end problem by simply extending the zipper about 18" past the end of the bag, like a long tail, and terminating the closed end with a substantial multi-stitched tape stopper. 20 zippers is one hell of a lot to repair due to the costs of dismantling, and I would bet that a new cover would be almost as cheap, but think about touch-and-close Velcro before designing same. There are numerous strengths of these fastenings, some of which would hold the Queen Mary! Not very convenient for long lengths due to handling problems, but infinitely longer lasting. A sail batten stiched into a hem, and finished with touch an' close makes for a much easier-to-handle closure than a damaged zipper. Dennis. Thanks again Dennis for your reply. A rust resistant safety pin may work here except if even a few of the teeth open at the starter end, it's almost impossible to open the zipper fully past them. However, if YKK does not come through with a good solution for me, I will consider the safety pin as a much cheaper alternative. Anybody know where they sell large rust proof safety pins? I will then take a picture of this 'fix' and send it to YKK corporate as an indication of their 'quality' products. Sherwin D. grandma Rosalie |
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