Old School Tent with Old School Zipper

On the service project last week (See Water Level posting), we slept in tents and some of the youth used an old school canvas tent that we brought along. After the week was over, the youth shared that the neither zipper on the door worked. A problem but apparently it was not a big issue to them and they they lived through it.

So, when packing it away after our return, I checked out the problem. It had the classic failure that we have all see when the zipper slider did not knit together the zipper teeth.

Well, it is an old school tent and perhaps I could get rid of it, but not today. Since this is and old school tent, it had an old school brass zipper. Brass is bendable, so using pliers I tightened up the back part of the sliders. (By the way, you really must to do this trick only when the zipper is moved to the "start" position.)


The back of zipper sliders have a small box-like area where the zipper teeth mesh and exit. If the box is too big, the teeth do not knit together. I applied the same process to both zippers and they now both work. The old school tent lives on to go on another trip someday.

Bonus trick: If you have a zipper with brass teeth that seem to take a lot of pull force to close, sometime candle wax can solve the problem. Lightly rub the wax on the teeth then test by operating the zipper. Don't use birthday candles since the wax is too soft to work well for this purpose.