How To Fix a Zipper on a Bag

The Leather Laundry is an industry-leading professional dealing with a wide gamut of fashion accessories. They also possess expertise in various cleaning, repair, restoration, and fabrication procedures. They specialize in multiple fabric repairs and specific repairs like bag zip repair, leather bag repair, handbag repair are just a few of the many assorted services they provide. So, if you are in Mumbai or happen to visit the city and on the lookout for leather bag repair in Mumbai, handbag repair in Mumbai, any other bag repair in Mumbai then the leather laundry is a must on your itinerary.

What does your favorite plush denim, that dashing leather jacket, those funky boots, the quirky handbag, camping gear, adventure sports equipment have in common? You have guessed it right, the good old, generous, and ever-useful humble zipper. A fascinating aspect of the zipper lies in its innovative invention which made our lives hassle-free. Zipper manufacturing scales to the range of billions worldwide. These zippers had their fair share of dark and gloomy stages throughout their development. Certainly astounding, isn’t it?

History of Zippers

It was the relentlessness and strenuous diligence of an engineer and concerned investors that helped materialize the development of zippers. Their quest towards the development of the zippers through rough tides was relentless. Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine commenced the eventful journey of zippers. He received an important patent for an “automatic continuous clothing closure” in 1851. He was busy promoting sewing machines which kept the zipper development under the rugs.

40 years down the road, inventor Whit comb Judson worked upon refining Howe’s idea. He ended up developing a “Clasp Locker” and tried marketing it with the same name. It was basically a shoe fastener that acted as a guide to close attachments in a shoe. Pertaining to the manufacturing difficulty, usage limitations it wasn’t appealing and swiftly fell out of favor.

Come 1913, Swedish-American engineer Gideon Sun back after a series of permutations and combinations, eventually materialized a newer version. The slider latched together with interlocking teeth mechanism. This was the actual zipper version that bears a striking resemblance with the modern-day zipper. This zipper version became the world’s first fastener. However, as far as the ‘zipper’ is concerned, it was the B.F. Goodrich company popularised the term based upon the sound ‘zip’ that the fastener produces while closing or opening. It was in the year 1920 when the company introduced these in their boots and gumshoes.

Before we proceed to understand how to fix a zipper on a bag, it is important to run through the various components of a zipper and its operation!

Zipper Components & Operation

A zipper has various individual components which when come together make the zipper operational. Irrespective of the commodity or product that the zipper is a part of, the basic structure and functionality are identical. A zipper is an integral part of all of our daily use of fashion accessories and outfits. Be it leather handbags, purses, gunny bags, rucksacks, duffle bags, all find this fastening component extremely vital.

To understand the bag zip repair and replacement process, it is important to figure out the individual parts of a zipper.

Constituting elements of a zipper

• The slider is the zipper element that contains the puller, window, throat, and crown.
• The puller is an extension that pulls the zipper and performs closure or disclosure.
• The ‘crown’ is the connecting loop that helps attach the puller to the slider.
• The ‘window’ is an empty and detached section of the zipper which helps enclosure of the zipper track.
• The ‘throat’ is a connecting ridge located on the side opposite to the window. It connects the zipper body and helps to unzip the track.
• The ‘teeth’ is the section that closes and opens when the zipping and unzipping action occurs. Coil, molded plastic, metal are the materials for teeth elements.
• To limit the movement of the zipper slider and defining its length, a ‘stop’ is provided on the throat side as well as the window side. The throat side stops are provided separately whereas the window side stop is a single block.

Jacket zipper arrangement

• On certain zipper arrangements, the window-side teeth elements are left open.  In this zipper arrangement, one side has an ‘insert pin’ which when inserted into the ‘retainer box’ on the other side locks in the zipper window to make the zipping action possible. This arrangement is visible in products that need continuous separation like that in a jacket.
• The teeth elements on both sides are stitched on tape extensions which are again stitched onto the main product that needs zipping. The tape extension fabric is generally kept slightly longer than the actual zipper length for smooth operation without interruptions. Fixing reinforcement tape on top of the tape fabric extension on the slider window side makes it strong and rigid.
• This small piece of fabric provides rigidity against the pulling action of the slider when the zip is closed and ensures a proper zipping action and zipper longevity.

How to Fix a Zipper on a Bag

Most often the zipper undergoes vigorous operation of continuous zipping and unzipping that renders them non-functional due to the irregular zipping and unzipping actions. It is very important to carefully stitch off the zip tape fabric from the bag before performing any repair or replacement.  The following instances require repair procedures for correction.

• The increase of the existent gap between the ‘top board’ and ‘bottom board’ decreases the required pressure needed to perform zipping action by sliding on the teeth elements on both sides. This makes the teeth separate after zipping takes place.
• Breaking plier helps in breaking the window side stop from the middle and remove it with ease. This helps in the easier removal of the zipper slider.
• The slider is then removed by removing the window side stop and the gap increase is adjusted carefully with the help of a plier to bring it to its previous state.
• Next, the slider is reattached to the teeth and the pressing action is repeated on both sides until satisfactory zipping happens.
• Finally, after attaching the stop, zipper with tape fabric, it is time to stitch back the bag or handbag together.

These steps are helpful to perform bag zip repair and other similar repairs where a zipper is present. After going through the entire journey on zipper repair, if queries like ‘leather bag repair near me, ‘handbag repair near me’ or ‘bag repair near me’ pop up in your mind, just think of The Leather Laundry and their decades of experience.