Zipper Blues!!!!!!!

Jan 19, 2010
12,362
Hobie 16 & Rhodes 22 Skeeter Charleston
So I have a mystery, or at least I'm confused.

I started my annual spring deep clean of my boat and when I pulled out my companion way enclosure canvas I found what I first thought was a bunch of mouse droppings ...

I WISH!

Turns out the little plastic teeth of my canvas covers magically fell off. But not all of the zippers suffered this failure. Only some did this and others seem totally untouched.

I don't get it. Why on a 23 year old piece of canvas would the zippers suddenly fail?

Anyone have an answer?

Zipper 1.jpg
Zipper 2.jpg
 
Feb 10, 2004
3,919
Hunter 40.5 Warwick, RI
UV damage. I had to replace all of my original zippers in my winter cover last year. 19 years of winter sun had done them in. I only had a few teeth break but it only takes one tooth to keep a zipper from functioning.
 
Aug 3, 2012
2,542
Performance Cruising Telstar 28 302 Watkins Glen
Yeah. I would guess you could track it to UV exposure.
 
Jan 19, 2010
12,362
Hobie 16 & Rhodes 22 Skeeter Charleston
@Rich Stidger and @ agprice22 Not likely UV.

I did not use them at all last season and they were stored up under the galley sink. When I pulled them out, the little black beads were all over the place.
 
Feb 14, 2014
7,400
Hunter 430 Waveland, MS
Cleaning chemicals under the Galley sink? Bleach? Windex? Alcohol?
Can you easily "pluck" other teeth off the fabric?
Jim...
 
Aug 22, 2017
1,609
Hunter 26.5 West Palm Beach
There are 3 types of zipper tooth forms, plastic, metal & loop. Each type comes in different sizes. The big plastic ones that are usually seen on boat canvas are size 10. You can buy zipper by the foot, but you need to know the size & tooth type so that you can buy the correct zipper slide to go with it. The slides often come in a 10 pack. You can get both metal & plastic slides that fit plastic tooth zippers. I find that the metal rots out much faster than the plastic wears out in a salt water environment.

As was said, Sailright is a good source.
 
Jan 19, 2010
12,362
Hobie 16 & Rhodes 22 Skeeter Charleston
Cleaning chemicals under the Galley sink? Bleach? Windex? Alcohol?
Can you easily "pluck" other teeth off the fabric?
Jim...
That might be it! It was under the galley sink. But the piece that seems untouched was on the aft berth.
 
Oct 19, 2017
7,733
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
My guess is bleach. Is it the cloth or the plastic that is failing? You can tell if it is cleaning chemicals by how easily the surrounding fabric and/or threads break when you pull on them. I let a canvas tarp soak in bleach too long and it practically disintegrated in my hand. It looked good, but it fell apart. The stitching went first, then the fabric itself started to tear.

-Will (Dragonfly)
 
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Jan 19, 2010
12,362
Hobie 16 & Rhodes 22 Skeeter Charleston
My guess is bleach. Is it the cloth or the plastic that is failing? You can tell if it is cleaning chemicals by how easily the surrounding fabric and/or threads break when you pull on them. I let a canvas tarp soak in bleach too long and it practically disintegrated in my hand. It looked good, but it fell apart. The stitching went first, then the fabric itself started to tear.

-Will (Dragonfly)
Hi Will

Maybe ...but I did not have any bleach in that locker. I did have a bottle of that yellow all-purpose windex. But it was closed. The plastic zipper teeth seemed to be glued in and it seems like the glue failed. But my bug screen (same zippers) was resting on the aft berth and the zippers there are fine.

I did get some water in that locker over the winter and some serious mold issues. Maybe the "glue" is biodegradable?????

I also sent my cabin curtains through the wash (on gentle) they also had some mold growing in them....and anyplace that had red color in the cloth just disintegrated in the wash. I'm starting to wonder if I had some sort of strange virulent form of mold in my boat. Anyway... I'll be ordering new curtains as well.

This spring clean is starting to grow into a bigger project than usual. Today, I spread all of my cushions out on the patio slab for a mild soap and dilute bleach bath... and a good scrubbing with a sponge mop. What a pain!