Thursday, July 26, 2012

Cruiser Tip: Plastic Zippers are Best!

There's nothing like grabbing your rain parka when you need it and finding the zipper rusted shut.  Trust me, I know because this very thing happened to me last season.  I had to take a pliers, grab the zipper handle with all my might and yank that puppy back into place.  Thanks to salt water and a little thing called oxidation, those little teeth had grabbed tight.  Reeeeal tight.

I know there are things you can do to prevent metal zippers from rusting (a little WD-40 will do the trick), however we obviously did not do them.  The next best thing to me is to avoid metal zippers and try to get gear with plastic ones.  Unfortunately, most retailers don't seem to specify if their zippers are metal or plastic.  I just recently got a new The North Face Women's Venture Rain Jacket (super cute, I got mine in yellow which is the easiest color to see at sea Scott has the men's version in blue) to replace my other one that rusted out and I can confirm it has lovely, unrustable, plastic zippers.  Now does anyone know of a good dopp/toiletries kit with plastic zippers? Ours are tin roof rusted!

7 comments:

  1. Kurt Miller7/26/12, 9:44 AM

    I've always just used a zip-loc bag for my toiletries kit! It makes getting through security at the airport easy, and I have no guilt throwing it away every year or two. Splurge and get the freezer type with the sliding lock.

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  2. SailFarLiveFree7/26/12, 12:05 PM

    I hear ya about metal zippers, but we've had equal frustration with plastic zipper teeth breaking on our bimini this season. How about an alternative to zippers altogether?

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  3. Jaime7/27/12, 7:06 AM

    Sailor Bags makes a dope kit... Wonder if those zippers are plastic, too?

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  4. Jaime7/27/12, 7:08 AM

    "Dopp" that is...

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  5. Scott7/27/12, 9:09 AM

    I've got a Protege Toiletry Kit from WalMart (a whopping $10). It's canvas, has plastic zippers and hangs neatly. The only bummer is the internal plastic pouch: it's kinda fallen apart after a year.

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  6. TT7/27/12, 12:39 PM

    Not sure if you have the japanese design brand Muji in the states, but they have very good, plastic containers and toiletries. Very affordable too.

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  7. Anonymous9/10/12, 4:45 PM

    Our toiletry bags from LLBean have survived 3 trips to the Bahamas. The nylon zipper on My LLBean jacket froze after too many dousing of saly water and they exchanged it without any problems. Love your blog!

    ReplyDelete

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