coil or toothed zippers

I've always preferred toothed over coiled, which pretty much leaves me with #5 tooth as the best all around.

This isn't based off outdoor gear but in my entire life with all my gear including casual wear, coiled zippers fall apart on me. Once the coil gets a kink it is just a matter of time before it breaks. Once the coil breaks and starts to unravel, it's a huge pain to use until you can replace it.

A tooth on the other hand is really hard to break off. Even if you manage to do so (I did when I was ten on some crappy hoody I had) you can still fiddle and get the zipper to work. Much more hassle but the zipper is usually serviceable in the field vs useless. Part of that is probably just the virtue of toothed zips being larger than the standard #3 coil.

There are #3 toothed zippers – though I don't know offhand of a MYOG supplier for them. I have them on my REI zipoff pants for instance, and have had them on light jackets in the past. I've used both toothed and coil in pretty much all types of MYOG gear and I stopped using toothed many years ago. Toothed are stronger unless they have to make it around tight curves – which they don't handle well – but a #5 coil is so durable that the difference is moot for any lightweight backpacking gear application. Now if I could get #3 toothed separating then I think that would be worth it since I have had poor performance from #3 separating zips in the past – they reach the point fairly quickly where they will not join up anymore.

okay, googled #3 toothed zipper

after a link to this thread, found http://www.wawak.com/products/product.cfm/pid/11606?gclid=CIiPhprep8ECFYqBfgodIHcAlA

#3 toothed including a two way seperating