Zipper woe, zipper questions

[r m]

Yesterday I happened to be skiing, a minor blizzard was coming, and the damned vent zip on my pants jammed open. The zip cover flap had gotten sucked in, and that thing wasn’t budging a micrometer. Didn’t have a knife or tools handy so I gave it a pervasive tug. Not having time for this shit or much to lose, I really tried and one side completely separated from the zipper slider. Oh well.

It wasn’t a first time offence either, it was a constant problem with those (new) pants.

It was a regular ykk zipper with a flap.

So it got me thinking about how some gear routinely has this problem, and how exactly do manufacturers fuck this up despite being in business decades. Superlight gear gets a pass, but these pants weren’t that.

Stiff zipper flaps are great, waterproof zippers are great.

So now I have two questions:

Are there any downsides to having waterproof/resistant zips instead on hard shells? Is it just a cost saving to avoid them on hard shells?

And looking around I noticed a lot of our respectably performing garments used ykk vislon zippers rather than coil. What drives that choice?

[Roger Caffin]

I suggest you are asking the wrong question. Try asking instead whether you really NEED zips on the waterproof pants.

Granted, the first w/p pants I bought (expensive GTX) did have w/p zips, but that was 30+ years ago. Since then ALL my w/p pants, and all my wife’s, have been totally free of any zips. They work just as well, and are usually a lot cheaper and lighter too.

On MYOG gear I use #3 coil zips, but I take some care with them and special care with the cover flaps. If you make the cover flaps on any zip quite stiff, they won’t get stuck in the teeth. Or you can make the flaps out of slippery L/W silnylon, as that usually manages to pull out of the slider with little force if it gets caught up.

Cheers

[Paul McLaughlin]

Vislon (toothed) vs. coil: vislon are more robust in nearly every way. Also slightly stiffer and less amenable to curved uses, like on a half cicle tent door.

[Franco Darioli]

When zipping/unzipping on a difficult item, try having a finger inbetween the two fingers holding the puller and the flap.

On trousers that would mean using the thumb and middle finger on the puller and the index finger resting on the middle finger.

(the extra finger just keeps the flap away )

[Sam Farrington]

YKK makes the toothed, aka Vislon, zips in no 3.  Have some from Warmlite.

But most pant zips I’ve seen are not water resistant and many are coils.  If vertical, they should open from the top end, so stuff doesn’t fall out, and tension is maintained when being unzipped downward with one hand.  And as Roger says, if there are protective flaps, they should be stiff, but not sure I’d want the slippery.

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