Material Sourcing – Plastic Snaps

[Scott Littlefield]

Hey gang – I'm looking to implement a new system on my tarps for closing off the ends and need to find a good source.

I need high quality, long lasting plastic snaps, but I don't want sew on kind. There's the trouble. It's easy to find sew on snaps…

My wife and I have used cloth diapers on our little one and these (Fuzzybunz) have amazing snaps that are rugged and work well in wet environments (think of the original application) – if you know what I'm talking about, that's the sort I'm in search of.

Any ideas?

[Tim Marshall]

don't you have to buy a press to use this type of snap?

-Tim

[Scott Littlefield]

Yes, I believe so. A hand press is only about $40.00. I sell a lot of tarps so it'd be worth it.

Here's what my searching has come up with thus far – any more thoughts would be great.

http://verybaby.com/notions/plastic-snaps-industrial-and-standard

http://www.kingrichardco.com/Snaps/plasticsnaps.htm

[Vick Hines]

My only question is, what is the release strength of these snaps? Neither supplier seems to provide that information.

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Tim and all

> don't you have to buy a press to use this type of snap?
Yes, and no. You do need a tool of some sort to set the pin in the snaps, but you don't have to buy a whole press for this. A good drill-press with a clamped vice suffices.

The tooling needed is pretty simple. I made my own tooling out of 1/4" steel rod, as shown in my poncho article at
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/myog_mntn_poncho.html
Alternately you could probably just buy the tool bits without the press.

The snaps are available from a variety of on-line sources such as
http://myebestbuy.com/index.aspx
http://verybaby.com/notions/plastic-snaps-industrial-and-standard
http://thesnapstore.com/catalog/index.php
and I am sure many others.

Holding forces for plastic snaps – unknown, unspecified, and unspecifiable. For a start, it will depend hugely on the temperature of the plastic. Metal snaps can be specified.

Cheers

[Bill Fornshell]

One of the members here offered a press and a bunch of snaps for sale about a week ago.

Don't look for it, I bought it.

This is the one I got:

Snap Press:

http://myebestbuy.com/hsf-1handpressmachines1set.aspx

Snaps:

http://thesnapstore.com/

[Richard Nisley]

Vertical release pressure on the (3/8" #15) Scovill snap sets, in nickel, average 1.5 lbs.

Patagonia Micropuff vest (1/2" #20) snaps, in plastic, average 2.2 lbs.

Standard size (5/8" #24) DOT snap sets, in nickel, average 3 lbs.

I used Rochford standard (5/8" #24) sized hard action snap sets, in nickel, on my most recent DIY project. The four component pieces weighed 4.1 g (.14 oz) combined and the vertical release pressure averaged 7.1 lbs.

[obx hiker]

Richard the information you supply to this blog is really incredible. Thank you and no need to respond.

[Scott Littlefield]

Thanks so much gang.

I also ran into one more, YKK snaps pointed me in their direction.

That large snap press looks nice. Once I get some samples and figure out what works for my application – I'll probably go ahead and get either that one or something similar. Thanks for the link.

http://thesnapstore.com/

Oh, and thanks very much for the tension numbers! Big help.

[Author]

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