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Make waterproof dual slide zipper actually waterproof
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Home › Forums › Gear Forums › Make Your Own Gear › Make waterproof dual slide zipper actually waterproof
- This topic has 4 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 7 months ago by Ryan Smith.
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Sep 3, 2018 at 5:11 pm #3554380
I recently purchased a backpack from an online cottage company. I wanted to add a waterproof pouch to store small items such as car keys, wallet, etc. They created one, but the design was very bad. Essentially, they added a dual pull waterproof zipper on the outside of the pack. This creates a large hole in between the pulls, allowing quite a bit of water to leak into it, essentially making it worthless.
I’d really like to fix this major problem to make it truly waterproof (or at least as close as I can get). It’s made of X-Pac. Here’s what I was thinking.
Remove stitches A and slide one pull off
Sew or glue some small square pieces of X-Pac to cover the zipper (blue) on the inside and outside of the zipper OR
Leave it as it is and allow zipper to slide underneath the existing fabric (would look like orange)Either way, I would need to re-stitch A. I would probably just add some seam sealant over the remaining part of seam A to prevent it from fraying.
Thoughts? Alternatives? I could send it back, but the shipping would probably not make it worthwhile. If adding the little X-Pac flaps would be ideal, I would certainly appreciate it if someone could mail me a small strip of X-Pac.
Sep 3, 2018 at 5:19 pm #3554381That sounds reasonable
Have you tried actually using it in the rain to see how much it leaks?
If there is a channel than directs water from above into the hole? That would be bad.
Maybe leave on both pulls and just make the strip of fabric bigger?
Sep 3, 2018 at 5:27 pm #3554385Yes, I tried it in the rain, and it leaks enough. I had a wallet in there. The contents were moist enough to destroy some business cards I left in there.
The pocket in the top of the pack. As such, the rain falls vertically directly into the zipper.
Sep 3, 2018 at 7:04 pm #3554400bummer
maybe the company would send you a scrap of fabric. More than reasonable of you to offer to fix it yourself
Sep 4, 2018 at 3:05 am #3554446Adam,
If you go that route I would be happy to send u some X-Pac although I only have two colors: black VX07 and gray TX07.
Ryan
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