Busted zippers on three jackets

Ouch, I feel for you. I think it just depends on how much you like the jackets and how much wear they would have left in them with workable zippers.

Last year I had to replace a broken zipper in DH's down jacket. With a storm flap, no less. It was a royal pain and took me most of a day, but the jacket is a good one, from Lands End, and his favorite. There didn't seem any alternative but to just do it.

The old folks, really old I mean, would say that this kind of endeavor builds character...not sure it improved mine any, though. : )

Doreen in Alabama

One of them I could probably live without, but one of them is my absolute favorite, and the reversible one is practically brand-new. I could probably get away with adding a zipper on one size of the reversible one and making it not reversible any more and that would be really easy, but my cherry-red one makes me feel more cheerful on glum days and I would hate to have to pitch it.

Quick and dirty repair; may not work with all styles.

1) Cut off the teeth of the old zipper 2) Hand sew new zipper to old tape 3) Cover icky old tape edge with grosgrain or bias.

Did this many years ago to a down jacket that I really, really didn't want to rip into (a very nice storm baffle system) (and I'd never heard of Penny then, or she would have gotten it in the mail with a pleading note). At any rate, the hand sewn zipper has lasted another 20 years...

Kay

At Wal Mart I have seen the pull thingy, if that is the part you are missing. It's in the craft dept close to the zippers. Barbara in cold, 28 degrees, SC "Melinda Meahan - take out TRASH to send" wrote in message news:439a4968$0$38609$ snipped-for-privacy@news.sonic.net...

Kay's quick and dirty is one way to do except I'd skip the grosgrain part and just leave it.

For missing pull tab on the slider just thread a paper clip or a 6" loop of cord through the hole in the head of the slider. For the missing slider, you just take off the top stop, and put a new slider on. The trick for new sliders is that while you can pick up spares, they don't always match exactly. The different brands ( YKK, Talon, generic) all are slighly different and they sliders for coil and tooth zips are different. Within. YKK, you have old and new style zipper. Do you by chance have the slider that fell off? There is almost always a little code on the back, tiny letters, something lik "5V" or ""5CN", on YKK at any rate. You can get sliders at most out doors stores in little zipper rescue kits.

hth and Kay - ever since I got a tour of the hermetically sealed down room at North Face I don't do down. ;-)

penny

I took DH's down jacket to an alteration shop that charged only $20 to remove the old and install a new quality brass zipper (price included the zipper). Well worth it to me as I had no machine that could handle the job.

I bought a reversible zipper for DH's walking suit top; they do exist. And installed new zips in both my lightweight jackets; took as much time to pick out the busted ones as it did to install the new ones, though. But like you, I was not ready to part with those jackets.

Jean M.

D

Can you replace the zippers with leather frogs? If I had a Lands End Jacket I'd call them before I'd replace a zipper. They guarantee everything forever. I returned a 5 year old sweater to them because the color band kept coming loose. I had repaired it many times and finely called them. They told me to send it back and they would replace it. I had also taken out the label because they always itch. Didn't matter,they replaced the sweater. Juno

Juno,

You're right, I'm sure LE would have sent us a brand new jacket. They are so good about that. But it was the only really warm coat DH had (it gets cold here--16 this morning--but for relatively short periods of time), and he really needed it Right Then. If I had sent the jacket back, we'd probably have been back in the 50s by the time a new one arrived.

Doreen in Alabama

Had some 1/4" grosgrain and I'd sewn the new zipper in with the old tape to the outside. Oh well, a little more handwork didn't kill me.

Neither do I, which is why I wasn't going to tear into that double baffle system...

But Penny, even if I begged and pleaded, sent it to the cleaners twice before sending it to you???? Couldn't you just work it in for me tomorrow? It won't take very long. Hey! Was that a bicycle pump that just went sailing through my screen??? Now, that was definitely a ski pole poking out the screen! Ok, ok! I get your point! No down, and no cutsies in line!!!

Kay

it's not the rush factor, as I don't do rush work... period. For down, it's the Daffy Duck factor. Fricking feathers, everywhere, except where you need them to be.

P.

The loops are missing. I already had substitute pulls on them before.

The reversible jacket looks like the bottom of the zipper is chewed up, so there is no hope to just replace a slider. My favorite cherry-red jacket says 5 HH on the back, though, so maybe there's hope. I would truly cry if I had to give up this one; it's been like my best cool-weather friend for 3 or 4 years now.

I'm allergic to Walmart, but I can't put a new pull on because there's nothing to hang it on, but thanks.

Well, I don't know where you live, but it costs $20 to get pants hemmed by a reputable person around here, and I'm guessing it would cost $40-50 to get the zipper replaced, and for that I could practically buy another one, so that is not an option. But I might make a few phone calls.

yes, you could cut the teeth off, and then just lay the new zipper on the inside of the coat.

HH? Tooth or coil? I"ll look through my drawers of zipper parts.

Once the bottom of the zipper is toast, the whole thing has to be redone. There's no reason you couldn't do it with your sewing skills, no reason to take it to someone else.

P.

They are plastic teeth, and thanks bunches.

The only problem is T-I-M-E. I have had to change accounts at work so much this year that my productivity is down, which means a pay cut, which means I have to work more to make as much as I was making before.

Of course, if I was really desperate I could just use it as a pattern to make more and just not use it any more.

If you'd ever ripped a hole in a down sleeping bag, you'd know... I persuaded a friend to send his ripped Black's Icelandic back for repair when I was a student because I saw the mess when he unpacked it from the damaged rucksack.

I'm in Atlanta, GA. There's a chain of Rose's alteration shops here. This was a few years back (3?) so they may well have gone up, but I was pleased with the work and the price. DD had used them a number of times for alterations.

Jean M.