Zippers: Humans’ Greatest Invention? No, But Still Good

I gotta fully prepare the studio, the little house studio. Here there we go. So I've just sprayed a couple of sprits is of Mama Brand Grapefruit tangerine aromatherapy room spray, and I'm feeling energized and ready to go. Oh good, that's very nice. That is some stuff, man. I need some of that in my basement. Oh you should have loads of it? I should? I do? I just don't have it down here? Where where could somebody find it if they weren't me already know where to find it?

I wish you gotta love your Mama dot com and support small businesses that sell soap. When you need soap. Very nice, Chuck, very nice, and yes, I can attest. This is some fine room spray. And you're washing your hands a lot, so get some motion because you're probably dry. I'm just using the room spray as everything. Oh yeah, yeah, lotion, soap, what else you know? Essential oil? Stuff like that lip bomb,

all all the good things to make you slippery. So, speaking of slippery, Chuck, you know something that's not really slippery when you use it correctly, a zipper. It's been a while, as far as the segway goes, so give me a break. It's been a while. Yeah, I I oh, oh, you just reminded me of something. Hold on, hold on, I'm very sorry. I gotta do this. I'm so glad you reminded me. Though. So you sang that song somehow it reminded me of breakfast at Tiffany's. That song that

duo is friends with our buddy Toby hal Brooks. Toby hal Brooks and his lovely wife and Nell just had their first baby. Oh Toby had a baby. Yes, So congratulations to Toby and and Nell. They have a cute little baby too. I've seen a picture of her and she is adorable. So congrats guys, and way to go. That's amazing. I'm very happy for them. Toby is a great guy. And I don't know if I met his wife, have I It don't know. I don't think I have. Maybe it's south by Southwest. Maybe that was a long

time ago. It was a while back. Yeah, I remember eating a drinking and eating Bloody Mary's with bacon and cheese, and that was one of those places that had it all in the glass. Yeah, it was nice at the Drexel Hotel. Right, Yeah, that was a good day or driscal dri driscyll all of that from It's been a while. So let's talk about buttons and then zippers. Okay, So I um thought that this was a pretty cool intro if you ask me, because if you think about zippers,

you think zippers they're great. Who needs to think much about them? Well, you do, pal, because you are blessed to be living in an age where zippers exist. Because it was not too long ago, um about a hundred years, a little over a hundred years that there weren't zippers. You had a button basically, maybe some clasps, nothing that you were going to be happy dealing with. And most

of the time. For most of human history, it was a button that was our only option to to to connect two pieces of fabric and hold it in place, which is more important than you would think. Chuck, the dumb clumsy button has been around. I think the earliest button that we found comes from a settlement settlement in the Indus Valley civilization which is now modern day Pakistan. Uh And it was a curbed shell. It's about five thousand years old. And buttons back then, this was sort

of even pre buttonhole they were they were loops. Um. If you've ever had one of those cool old school uh well, some pea coats have the have the loops, some don't. But I'm kind of thinking of the the loop and bone thing that some of these kind of corduroy coats have had. Or like if you were a cape and probably you've probably encountered something like this. Yeah, my cape definitely has a loop and bone. One of my capes, say Pakistan, but like Sammy Davis Jr. Pakished

on babe, very nice, very nice. So um, the button from what I understand though, from this, you know, five thousand years ago up to a little less than a thousand years ago. For the most part, it was just basically for showing off, you know, like, yeah, you could use it to clasp a couple of pieces of material together, whatever. But for the most part it was an adornment. It

was like jewelry. And it wasn't until I think the thirteenth century that buttons started to be taken seriously for the first time, where you had the first button makers guild formed in France in twelve fifty. That was a big watershed moment in the history of buttons. Yeah, the French. They basically everyone was like, guys, we've had buttons for a long time. I think it's about time we start taking these things seriously. Yeah, this is it's been amateur,

our bush league stuff up to this point. Let's let's get serious about buttons. And they did. So they really stopped and thought, well, we can make this better. Forget that loop that you put things through, and you know, the button can just fall right right back through. What if we make a hole in the actual fabric that we're trying to connect itself, so some edges around it and make what we'll eventually call a button hole. How about that? And this act really as simple as that

is just made clothing technology jump by light years. Yeah, that was a big deal because, uh, those loops can break off, and often do, but sometimes they just dissolve in the sun. Yeah, those buttonholes did. They don't break I guess if you were really hard on them, they could eventually split to the seam. But there were a lot better than those loops. And you know, buttons they were the thing. They were around for a long time. They were just sort of the way that you've fastened

two pieces of clothing together. But at some point someone was like, there's got to be a better way. Like every great invention, not every great imation, but many great inventions were built on someone trying to do something in

a better way. Yeah, because I mean even when the buttons working on all four cylinders, which is as many as it has, there's still some real flaws in it, and that the fabric that you're pulling together and holding together with the uton might be held at the button point, but above and below that button there's a big old hole, and who knows what's sticking out of there, you know what I'm saying. I'm sure buttons can also pop off. There's some problems with it, and with those flaws like

you're saying. Some people said, there's got to be a better way, and as a progression of people started to kind of vibe on the same idea, separately from what I understand. And the first of the bunch was a guy named Elias how Jr. Who in eighteen fifty one got himself a patent for a automatic continuous clothing closure. That's right, was what he called it. Not exactly catchy. Yeah.

So his idea was, you you saw some reinforcements to a couple of edges of material that you want to you know, join together in wedded union, and you connect them with all these, uh class a series of clasps, but they are connected by a cord running or sliding as he says in the pattern up on ribs. Not the best invention, and it didn't work that great because they were clasps like this was the pred the predecessor of the zipper, to be sure it was. He was

not on it like later inventors would be. No, but the idea of pulling on like a pull and moving like a mechanism across you know, two pieces of fabric, enjoining it together in its wake. That is the clearly the foundation of zippers, Like this guy clearly laid the foundation and probably would be considered the father of the zipper. But he left everything just sitting there in his patent.

He never pursued it, and um, most people think that the reason he didn't pursue it because he had bigger fish to fry in the form of the modern sewing machine. He was also the inventor of the sewing machine, and he's like, I'm feel a little more bullish about the sewing machine than than the zipper. To use um clap seeing economy type terms. That's right. So the father of the zipperh is a man or generally known as this man from Chicago named Whitcomb Judson. This is about forty

four years after Howe's had. How had filed his patent and he marketed and sold, which meant, you know, he kind of owned it then as a clasp blocker or unlocker for shoes, which, um, it was interesting that he was that narrow in his design. I think, I don't know if it was at the time. I think now you try and go as broad as you can with patents, But back then he was like, this thing works great for shoes, uh, and shoes are kind of a pain to put on, so that was what we're going to

use them for. Yeah, I mean, he was like, this is a real problem because again, we have buttons mostly for shoes, and you know, because shoes were fairly form fitting, you needed a lot of buttons per inch in a row to really hold these two pieces of fabric together,

one flap over another. So these buttons were small and they were sewn close together, so close in fact, that they invented another um UH invention called the button button hook, and it was like a little handheld harpoon, a mini harpoon with the hook on the end, and you would push it through the button hole and pull the button out with it, and you do this like eight ten thousand times per shoe. And that was how you put

shoes on. So, I mean, I'm sure people just put shoes on once when they were grown adult and just didn't take them off until they were buried, you know. So he was trying to solve the solution with a poll that you could just kind of do the same thing with. And he he really took Alia's house, and again I'm not sure if it was because he was familiar with the patent or not um, but he he took that and basically said, this is this is worth pursuing,

this is this is important stuff here. Yeah. So, like many great inventors, he got together with a business person, a man named Colonel Lewis Walker, because a lot of times inventors like to toil away in the shop and tinker with things, and they need like a real business brain to kind of run the show. Why is it always a colonel though, Why not like a major or general?

Is it always a colonel? Yeah, Colonel Tom Parker, Colonel Sanders, Colonel Sanders, Colonel Bruce Springsteen, colonel colonel Colonel So he got together with Walker, Colonel Walker, and launched the Universal Fastener Company to manufacture and sell the Judson Security Fastener.

Very clever there the letter c dash Curity Fastener. Uh And like so many huge products, were debuted at the Chicago World's Fair and was a huge hit it except that it wasn't No, And I have to say, admittedly it took me at least twice to realize it wasn't cocurret e. Really, yeah, it wasn't the first time. But so in that World's Fair, Um. They when they debuted it, this is have you ever read Devil in the White City before it? Man, you're really gonna like it, Chuck.

But anyway, it was that world's fair. God the Guide us such a great job of describing that that world's fair, and like the importance of it. As far as I know, he doesn't mention zippers, but he may because he did some pretty good research obviously. But the whole thing was a flop for a couple of reasons. They were really unreliable at the time, and they were really expensive, and when you looked really closely at them, they still weren't

what you'd recognize as zippers. They had little class, but it was a little class hook combo. And when you dragged this this mechanism up, the clasps were pulled toward one another and hooked. When you pulled it down they would be unhooked. You also could just do the whole thing by hand, but again it was still like this clearly the foundation for zippers, but it wasn't quite right. Um.

Luckily whitcome Judson didn't give up. Instead, he hired a guy named Gideon son Back who basically came in and is in my opinion, the true father of the Zipper, right, I think that seems like a natural breakpoint. I thought, so to tease it there with Gideon son to back, and we will come right back and talk about son

to Back right after this. I want to learn about astortic college, how to take a perfect but all about fractalkiscon un the Lizzie Border murders and the guy I've all runs on the plane every day that we should know. Ward up, Jerry, there was a hundred and ten percent chance that this is going to be a little sillier than average. What the zipper episode? Mhmm, all right, because they're so silly, they are so before we broke. I don't know if you remember you called Gideon son Back

the true father of the zipper? Uh? He did I say that? I don't know, but he is the father of the zipper because he made what we all recognize as a zipper. He was Swedish born and he was an electrical engineer, which is kind of interesting. You would think mechanical, but I guess you just knew how to tinker with things. He was a bit of a show off apparently. Oh yeah, well, I mean he was an electrical engineer who who was the father of the zipper? Come on, oh, I got you. You know he was

a glory hog, Colonel Bruce Prings. He was hired to work for that Universal Fastener company and he married the plant manager's daughter, one Elvira Aaronson. It's a great name, which, um, he was talented, so I'm not saying he got it sherely because of nepotism, but he did get a position as a head designer at that company, and he was like, this security fastener is okay, but it really ain't all that.

His wife very sadly passed on in nineteen eleven, and that really just gave him the time to pour himself into a project. A couple of years later, December of about a being bought a boom. You've got the zipper. Yeah. Um. He created the hookless number one and the hookless number two, And he said in an interview later that like the key was getting rid of those hooks, terrible books, the hooks.

Everyone was so sick of these stupid hooks. But when he came up with the hookless number one and the hookless number two, and the hookless number two is what you would say there's your modern zipper right there. It was such a big deal that UM the company changed its name from Universal Fastener to Hookless Fastener Company. So that's I mean, that's pretty big. Like you know, you've kind of made it as the head designer if you design a product, and they changed the company name because

of it. And in this patent that Sunback got um it basically it improved on that security fastener in a number of ways. Rather than I think four clasps per inch, he well, he changed the clasps to teeth. Was big first steps. And then rather than four clasps per inch, he added um at least ten or eleven teeth per inch. So the more teeth or the more points of contact where the fabrics joining together, the stronger that bond is going to be. Um He He also created something UM

a machine to produce it with. And that's I think where his electrical engineering stuff came in. Yeah, the scrapless machine took this y shaped wire, cut these little scoops out, and then punch that scoop dimple and little nib and then clamped each one of those on a cloth tape. And all these words sound weird when you're just saying them like that. He invented the zipper. He did think of the zipper, looked down at your zipper, and that's

what he did. That's what all those words mean. Yeah. Uh. And again, like the stuff he was working with the foundation wasn't like it wasn't a hop, skip and a jump. This guy like really he really contributed to the world basically. Yeah, and the world caught on. He was making a few hundred feet of these a day initially, and the US Army said, hey, these are great because here's what we've got going on. We don't have pockets on our sailors pants. I don't know why, and so they need to keep

stuff in there. So we give everybody these little Fannie packs. Basically, these are money belts, and they're always losing their money, these sailors, so we gotta have these zippers. We need twenty four thousand of these to keep the sailor money inside their Fannie packs. Yeah. I think they just assumed that from that point on, anytime they went into port, they would come back with all of their money. It still didn't work, but it was clear they hadn't lost

it along the way. They just spent it. All. Yeah, so twenty four thousand that year. Uh, in nineteen eighteen they ordered ten thousand for pilot flight suits, which makes sense. I gotta have those things. Yeah, sealed up and uh, it still wasn't called a zipper at this point though. That was the B. F. Good Rich company who actually used his fastener sunbacks on these galoshes that they put out in NT the notice that made a little zip sound,

and so they called these boots zippers. It wasn't actually the zipper. They called the boots the zippers. Isn't that fascinating the first the first use of the word zipper described boots, not the zippers on the boots. Pretty cool. I love it, and be of good Rich. I think they still make at least souls for shoes too. Oh yeah, yeah. Imagine going to the store and buying a pair of BEF good Rich galoshes. You know those things are gonna last,

I would think. So you're wearing tires right right, you can only buy them at the tire store, the most boring place on earth. Oh yeah, with the worst coffee and the worst magazines. Unless you're into monster trucking or bass fishing, right then you're in Hong Heaven. So for the first little bit, that's what the zipper was used for. They were used for boots, they were using the military. There were tobacco pouches. Uh, and I guess these little

money belts, and they weren't used on clothes. Though. It took about twenty years for the fashion industry to come around and say, you know, I think these beat the button in the class. Yeah, and for a couple of reasons. One, these early zippers were not the best. They didn't work every time, they would wear out pretty quickly, and they were still rather expensive. This is like cutting edge technology

at the time. Zippers were not cheap. Um. But one of the other big reasons why zippers took a while to catch on even after they started being used in men's wear, um, was because they were viewed as improper for women, which I hadn't heard of, ed you No, I mean it doesn't surprise me, but it's hysterical and awful to think about the fact that they didn't initially want zippers because it made it way too easy for

women to take their clothes off. Yeah, like like that would just be it, like, oh, well, I can take my clothes off a little more easily than I could if these were buttons. So I'm going to become promiscuous as a result. Yeah, just because that extra thirty seconds, the mood passes. Yeah, it's true. Like well, yeah, I mean, if you have trouble getting buttons off, I could see getting frustrated, that could kill the mood. So maybe they

were onto something. But in the in the movie of set, during this time, the tawdry couple rips opened the bodice and they all laugh as as clasps are falling to the floor. Yeah, it's true, it's true. Zipper is not as funny. No, but it does make a seductive per when it's pulled down at just the right just the right timing hit in the right speed. It's titillating. It's arousing, like yeah, there's nothing more tittilating than a quick little it's open right like no, no, we're more of a man.

You gotta stop. Isn't that nice? Yeah? This is it's getting little warmed down here in the bag. I know. I'm glad we're not in the same room right now. So, uh, Corset's especially found the zipper. The corset industry was like, no way, are we going to use those vulgar zippers

on these things. We have morals where the fashion industry, and they were even designers Elsa and Edward Malan No or Malan new they were sort of sort of teasing the establishment by purposefully including zippers and saying like, we don't even need these, but look, we're doing it anyway because it's the nineteen thirties in your face establishment. That's right,

button establishment, so right. One of the other big things, um, that pushed things forward was the use of zippers and jeans, And to this day there is a long standing debate that I read about on the Levi's five oh one Blues blog Wow, between zippers and button jeans, And apparently there's purists who are like buttons were first. They were on the first pair of Levi's back in three I think, um,

because they didn't have anything better. Basically, yeah, zipper people say, well yeah, and then zippers came along and we didn't need buttons anymore. Stuff living in the past, man, um. But there's still an ongoing debate and raising debate. But if you were to travel back to the nineteen thirties and pick up a copy of Esquire magazine, you would find that the Battle of the Fly, I believe is what it was called, was declared dead, and that the

zipper one was around back then. Oh yeah, they're nice, Yeah, just cutting edge stuff. I am not opposed to a five oh one button fly. I agree that it's kind of classic. I'm generally a zipper guy, but I don't mind a button fly. I well, I was reading a recent Esquire right up about the nineteen thirties Esquire right up, which is kind of weird now I think about it. But um, they were saying, like, yes, the button does have some advantages. It's a lot harder to forget when

you leave the bathroom than it is you know, your fly. Um, but it's harder to open up when you really need to pee. That's a big problem. And as an adult you can kind of regulate that, right, No, not me. I have that brain bladder connection, like going full bore. Yeah, I guess I can see that. So like having to fumble with buttons while you're like about to just pee yourself, it's not a good thing. But anyway, Esquire also put

it like this. Um they said that the button fly also adds bulk, but not in the desirable spinal tap way in a do you have some sort of terrible condition way, it's pretty great. So I think they're right there kind of wins the zipper debate. Yeah, well, you know the other thing that won't happen with the button flies. You're not gonna you're not gonna pull a something about Mary moment. Hey, we'll say that for the end. I'm

just saying, alright, So, uh. In the nineties, we've got children's clothing being a big sort of sales pitch for zippers because they're like, hey, you want a kid that can put their own clothes on and get to that factory super fast, give them zippers. So um, I think that's pretty genius. Actually, yeah, I mean he want he wants to. I mean buttoning up a child's clothing is the worst, right, especially if you have to use one of a very dangerous button hook to do it. Yeah,

it's just not a good idea. You don't want to get that anywhere near a kid. So, as is usual with fashion, the children's fashion leads the way, um, and paved the way for zippers to come in. Like I said, to men's trousers. Eventually, women's clothing and then women's genes.

Zippers were finally added to jeans because of women. Apparently Western women were totally fine with the buttonfly, but back East they were a little more modest and decided the buttonfly allowed too much breeze to blow through, and so Levi's added zippers to their jeans to try to market them to women in the East and the mid forties. I'm surprised women were wearing jeans in the mid forties.

I was surprised by that too. Smells like Catherine Hepburn's work if you ask me, But on those jeans, ladies, that was amazing. So these I used to do a pretty good Catherine Herburn. That was not my best effort,

it was still pretty good. Uh, you old poop. So they went from producing the Hookless Fastener Company twenty four thousand zippers that first year in nineteen seventeen in nineteen thirty four sixty million, by nineteen seventy one two point three billion, Yes founding, and by nine seventy one they had changed their name again from Universal Fastener to Hookless

Fastener to now Talent. Make a note of that. Oh that's right, Yeah, I put a little pin in that Okay, so uh, these were zippers that were uh and we have all the name. These were called closed ends sippers. That is, it's on a pair of jeans or something. It's not like you're trying to put together to completely unattached things like a jacket. Let's say, right, that would be the next big thing that yeah. So yeah, there's actually apparently three main kinds of zippers which I wasn't

aware of. But the the the ones like on jeans or whatever, that's the close end. The ones separate like on a jacket or something like that that opens all the way. Those are open end. And then you've got the show offs of the zipper world, the two way zippers.

They think they're all that, yeah, but apparently, and there's like all sorts of subcategories to like, for example, there's the two way closed zipper where when the when you open the thing you have to pull, the zipper slides toward one another and when they meet they keep one another from from sliding off or opening further. But if you look at the say suitcase or whatever, it actually forms an X with the two zippers lines in the middle.

That's an X type two way closed zipper in industry lingo. Yeah, and it's here that I should point out that, um something that I don't think I've ever talked about much on the show. But I am a bag enthusiast. Oh yeah, backpacks, luggage over the shoulder, bags, messenger bags, Merses, I've got. I do have a merse um. Shout out to nut Sack, Merses, No, No, and ut Dash s A C. Sure it's great. Still it doesn't matter now it's that's the name of the company.

Oh got, It's got a little acorn on the front of it. That's it's very cheeky, obviously, But I stand by my Nutsack. It's great. Let me ask you, how did you end up becoming like a bad guy. I don't know, man, there's something about finding the perfect bad bag with all there's something about all the compartments that

fit just the right things. I don't know. I think I'm a little bit of a O. C. D spectrum thing um that I've talked about here and there over the years, with stepping on cracks and doing certain things an equal amount of times with each foot in each hand, Like I don't let it drive me or control me. But all that stuff is in there and I think it has something to do with my bag thing is having seeking out the perfect bag that holds all of my things in exactly the right way. Very nice. But

I mean, when did this start? Was it like middle school, high school? College? I think I always was sort of into them, but like I was happy to just have the backpack that was just okay because I was young and broke. But now that I'm an adult, you know, I can I can try a couple of different bags out and I recycled them. I don't have a room full of bags. Emily will will disagree and say that I have far too many bags and some that don't

get used. But I did just recently sell a bag um to to a guy like how like on the street now it was I put it on Facebook and it was ended up going to a husband of someone I knew that. He was like, he wants this thing. I was like great, so um, anyway, I have a bad thing. And there's a sub category of people on the internet travel people that are really into bags and

especially zippers. That's where this all comes in. There is a lot of zipper talk on these sites because they're not all designed well and you've got to have a really great zipper system in order to be a great bag. That is the thing. That's one of the best easiest ways you can tell a knockoff bag, even a well made knockoff bag, from the real thing is how good is the zipper? Yeah, I get the impression that really nice zippers aren't the cheapest things to include in a bag. No. No,

because anybody can dash off a zipper. Yeah, we could make one right now if we wanted to. Sure it was arts and crafts time, but it's not. It's talking time. It we couldn't make a really well made zipper. No. And a complaint you will see oftentimes on these websites is travel websites is great bag. But boy, why did they put this zipper on this thing? Right? And so, I mean, when you put a zipper on a bag or a pair of jeans or something like that, it

is done, like there's not any any redoing this this thing. Like, if it's a good zipper, great, If it's a bad zipper, you just ruined the bag or ruined the jeans. And then once the zipper inevitable inevitably breaks, the bag is useless. The genes are useless, and that's actually a mark in the favor of buttons. You can replace a button that pops off when the zipper breaks, Yeah, you can fix it. There's definitely videos on how to deal with different um

zipper issues. But when it's broken, broken, there's there's it's a problem. It's a lot more of a problem than when a button pops off, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, I agree. Um, And here's the point where we uh where I'm going to call on you. Maybe we'll take a break. I knew you were going to do this. I am because you somehow made describing how a zipper works confusing. So this is on you and we'll talk. Josh will explain exactly how a zipper works.

Right after this. Oh man, I want to learn about a rosortic college actol, how to take a perfect with all about fractal kiscon that's a little hun the Lizzie Border murders, that they kind of all runs on the plane. Everything that's we should know. Word up, Jerry, So let me think of some movies. Uh have you seen? Have you seen Altered Carbon? I know it's not a movie, it's a good TV show though. I have not. That's good. Um, I already talked about ozarks recently. Right, are you putting

this off? Yeah? All right. I'll describe how to use a zipper because I didn't realize this before. Did you know just how a zipper worked? You did not? I did? You can look at it and tell how it works. Well, I've looked at plenty of zippers, and I guess it hasn't sunk in. I finally had to read what's going on down there? Magic? I thought a little magic wizard lived in each zipper slide and would be like Alec Gazoo. I think what you're saying is you didn't realize all

those parts had names. Maybe that's definitely part of it, but no, I also didn't understand the physics. I'm gonna do this. You're ready, stand back? So uh. With every kind of zipper, you have teeth, and you put the teeth together and you have a zipper chain. You have the thing that moves up and down the zipper that's called the slide, and the slide itself is usually made up of the slide body that the zipper teeth go through, a bridge that's connected to the slide body, and a

puller or a tab that's connected to the bridge. Okay, okay, So when these teeth are manufacturers will talk about in a second. They're made so that they're all the exact same size and shape, but then when they're connected, they're offset, so that if you take two teeth in between the teeth, a little hole or hollow or valley forms and the teeth on the opposite side of the fabric that's going to be connected. The tooth fits into that hollow just so, but it doesn't fit in just so so that it

could just pull right out. It has a little hook on the end of it, and so when the slide body comes in contact with the teeth on either side, it has like wedges inside the slide body that kick those teeth up at an angle or down at an angle, and it also pulls them together. So it actually takes the tooth and puts it at an angle so that it fits into the hollow between the other two teeth on the other side. And then as it passes by, that tooth goes back to horizontal and it's locked in.

The little hook on the end locks it into that hollow, and from being locked in, it provides stability for the teeth that are connected on either side above it, and so on and so forth, so that as the slide finally reaches at the top, it hits a stop which keeps the slide from going off the end um. And it's done. It's a little job when it comes back down.

When you pull down on the slide to un zip, it actually uses a reverse wedge of plow to kick those wedges back up and separate them so that they can easily the hook tooth can easily pull out of the hollow and separate. And that, friend, is how a zipper works. That's great. Oh, I haven't pressed your court. I just went ahead of Mike's mighty good ramen. I had one of those two. I had the kimchi one out of the pork um. That was good, chuck. If you hadn't it checked out, you would. I was frankly

expecting a little round of applause. Oh, people are clapping all over the world right now. Good good, Okay, So it is great. Uh. It's such an elegant design because what you're doing here, and it's easy to take for granted, but what you are tasked with with doing with making a quality zipper is making something that is very very easy to zip up and down or back and forth, because you don't want that thing to get hung up

or to be hard to pull. It's got to be really easy, but it also has to be super super secure. And the and the marriage of those two things I think is kind of really speaks to the elegance of the design of the zipper exactly. And the more the more well designed and well manufactured the teeth are, the tighter that bind is going to be, yeah, because they

fit together so precisely. Yeah, if you've had zipper problems and bad zippers, that's when it that's when you really need to to thank your lucky stars that people are out there designing and making great zippers, right, which are just too expensive to easily be attained. Or like when that stop doesn't work and you go to zip up at that jacket and all of a sudden, you're you're holding that bull tab and the bridge right like a dummy. Yeah,

so there are things there. It's the worst you can So there's actually little clamps that you can put on a zipper broken zipper. I saw a video about this that fit in between like the top two teeth on either side, and then you just take some need on those pliers and basically clamp it on the on the inside and outside of the zipper fabric tape and that

will stop that slide. So if the slide ever comes off, because this one of the stops broke off, you can actually take um not at all drastic measures to fix your zipper. Not me, man, I throw that jacket in the garbage right to set it on fire force at least all the methane inside. I do, and then I sweep up the ashes, a urinate on them, and I put it in the garbage. You turn it into a six pack ring and throw it into the ocean. Now that is a good tip actually, because there are ways

to darn socks and fix zippers. And we live in a disposable society. So if you have a cheap zipper, or you know, if you really like a jacket and it has a terrible zipper, you could take it to a place and they could probably put the zipper of choice on there. But that's a lot of work. It is a lot of work. There are things that you can do yourself. You can also um if the zipper slide is not doing a very good job any longer of connecting the teeth. It's probably because the wedges inside

are a little loose, a little far apart. Again, needle nose pliers are your best friend. Pinch the zippers from the side and from the front and back. You're not the zipper the slide mechanism. Sorry, and it will, um, it will. It'll produce a tighter grip on the zipper teeth from that point on. Again, basically you're breathing new life into your zipper slide. Yeah, and uh failed to mention that I'm also an outdoorsman and camper my whole life, so aside from my bag fetish um sleeping bags intense.

That's a real big deal to have the right zipper on those things. Yeah, that'll that. This the worst is and especially on tense, the design such that, um, when you're zipping it, the little flap gets zipped up in the zipper. Yes, that's pretty bad. It's awful. It is, um and that's something you can deal with yourself. But zippers can also get stuck over time, especially if it's a metal zipper and it's starting to corrode. They don't

like to slide nearly as much. There are little things, little tip tips and tricks you can do to unstick a zipper that's a little corroded. One of the first things you can do is take a graphite pencil and rub it on the teeth just below the zipper. And graphites a dry lubricant and it'll help you unzip it if the If the pencil doesn't work, try a little bit of bar soap, dry bar soap, and if that doesn't work, to spray a little squirt tiny stream of windex on there and let it sit for a little

while and that should unzip your corroded or gunky zipper too. Yeah, very good tips here from Uncle Josh. Right. So there's some other things, Like we just basically described how zipper works. What is zippers made out of um? Or what the components are. There are some other things that they make some little fancy dancy kind of a kouchruma to zippers um.

One of the things UH that comes in handy is, say, like with a tent or something, when you want the zipper to stay up, is a locking slide to where it won't like you could pull the zipper apart and it won't come apart because that slide won't move. It only moves when you pull on the tab because it lifts the locking mechanism as you slide up or down. That's a good one. They also make magnetic zippers, which is good for one handed zipping and unzipping. It's amazing.

I think so too. So let's talk a little bit about how it's made and then we're going to bring it home with a little manufacturing and medical action. Okay, Yeah, so zippers, it depends on what it's made out of. Obviously, with how it's made. UM a lot of zippers, you'll see her metal um. They can be flat or they can be profiled. They can be made of aluminium, nickel, brass, nickel,

free white brass, nickel, aluminum, brass, aminium right, nickelodeon. I'm just reporting what I found on the internet, not making fun of you. Uh. They can be die cast out of zinc alloy directly onto that tape and you end up just sewing that or gluing that onto the material. And I imagined that might be a bit of a

more robust zipper. Yeah. The that that machine that Gideon's sunback Um came up with is still The design principle of it is still in use in some zipper manufacturers where they take wire and just like pinch and pull and clamp the zipper teeth out of wire onto this zipper tape the fabric that's going to be put onto the material that the zippers applied to you. That's right. If you're working with plastic, there's basically two main ways.

And I saw really great how it's made. It's like five minutes long, but it just explains it all um. With plastic, there's a couple of reasons why you would want plastic. You can actually manufacture plastic two more precise design specifications if you're doing it right than metal zipper, which means that it may actually provide a stronger grip. It also doesn't corrode, although metal zippers are typically thought of as is tougher over time, but they they they

will corrode. Plastic doesn't corrode. But if you're making plastic, you can make it a couple of ways. One you can make it basically just like a metal zippers made by die casting it. And then another way is to actually print it onto the tape, so like the whole zipper to the exact length you want is just basically formed and melted onto the fabric tape, and then there's your zipperty. It can be super super solid. It's not like a plastic zipper has to be cheap, no uh.

And then if you want a flexible plastic zipper, there's something called a woven coil nylon zipper. And you've probably seen this before, like on a dress that's meant to have movement or something like that. It's a it's a very thin um it's almost like a nest of of nylon woven on either side, and the zipper just moves up and down it. You've seen those before, I'm sure I have. Don't play me bro. Most of my dresses require movement, that's for sure. So I think we should

talk a little bit about y K k uh. If you've ever looked down and seen a zipper, the chances are you have if you've ever worn any article of clothing and seeing y KK. That stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushiki Kasha, which is UM a Japanese company that makes these. Where else making Georgia. Yeah, that's like their biggest plan is in making Yeah, and I knew it was in making.

Actually they make about five million zippers a day. Uh. They started making zippers the Japanese company in four They make theirs out of copper alloy, and they're really smart. This is a company that UM. They build the machines that make the zippers, they build the boxes and make the boxes that they ship them in. So they have a lot of control over the the pricing of their supply chain, which is a great way to make a lot more money than you would if you were outsourcing

that stuff right exactly. And so y k K kind of came up. They started in the ninety four, but by nineteen seventy they really started to take over the zipper industry, so much so that prior to nineteen seventy a little company called Talent, which you might know of as the hookless fastener company, UM had seventy percent of

the market share. Seven out of all ten zippers that you found in the world were made by Talent, And by nineteen seventy one suddenly y KK had like of that, and they were the big kid on the block for decades until basically recently, when UM some Chinese firms started to really come up to yeah, and the Chinese firms. There used to be hundreds of these and they have now sort of been consolidated down to like how many do they have over there now? Yeah, but there's really

two big ones now, SPS and y KK. Right, and a lot of these Chinese companies will be called things like y q Q or y c C right obviously trying to uh sort of rip off the y k K company. And it's like any business where there are some big, big players, there's fierce, fierce rivalries in the zipper industry. Yumi said that when she was a kid, her mom wouldn't buy something if the zipper wasn't y KK. Sure you know it's quality zipper right there, made by

relatives of the Allman Brothers problem. That's right, that's where the museum is so um. So that's why y KK has found on most your zippers because of this company that has been doing this for a very long time. Right, It's pretty amazing. And I feel like, Chuck, we would be remiss in talking about zippers if we also didn't talk about, as you kind of teased earlier, Genitalia getting caught in zippers, which is one of the big drawbacks

of zipper technology. Yeah, the very famous Signfelt episode when he's remarking about his button flies. You want to do your best Jerry Seinfeld. Here, this is the one place on my wardrobe. I do not need sharp, inter locking metal tee. Oh I think you had Seinfeld confused with Silence of the Lambs. Which fun Buffalo Bill or Hannibal elector Seinfeld of the Lambs. Oh wait, let me see if I do it. Just do one place on my wardrobe. I do not need sharpen or locking metal tea. Except

he would not have a zipper on his kimono. Was that better or worse the second time? I don't know. They were both great. I think worse. I'm going with so Yeah, it's um. There are zipper injuries, mostly with boys and men. That was a group in two thousand thirteen and the urologists in San Francisco that's published an actual study about zipper injuries in between two thousand two in there were close to eighteen thousand men and boys who had had zipper accidents um at the emergency room

with some variation of a something about mary type of injury. Yeah, that's that's not that's just the ones that were bad enough to go to the emergency room. Yeah, not the ones that are like, ah, let me just put some ointment on that, right, But that's exactly the treatment that those guys got at the at the emergency room. Apparently the treatment for it was described by a doctor, a

pediatric doctor, who said, I'm just gonna read this whole thing. Okay, Yes, you want to just pour mineral oil all over the patient's genitalia and the zipper be generous, that's the key. This is pretty cheap stuff. Then let the patients sit there for twenty or thirty minutes, pack him in a room somewhere, and when you come back, the four skin will have simply slipped out of that zipper, although in some cases you may need a cotton swab to help

it along a bit. You know, my favorite part of that whole quote, right, what it was when he's talking about how inexpensive mineral oil is. Right, because you know, mineral oil, you can just afford to just douse your testicles with that stuff because it's pretty cheap. This isn't like you know something, um Martin. Sure Kelly would invest in what god farmer bro. Yeah, he would never buy into a mineral oil company not profitable enough. I guarantee

that he's trying to get rich off of coronavirus. I think he's in prison again. No, he's still He's probably got his minions. Um, yeah, probably so. Yeah, you can get your your junk zipped up in there. Uh, I had I don't understand why a man would go commando to me, the underwear is one of the biggest benefits is to avoid zipper related injuries. But people do it, and I just imagine you've got to be super careful. Yeah,

not just men too. There were five women in that group of seventeen thousand, six hundred and sixteen emergency room visits. Five women got caught in there. But for young boys, Chuck, I thought this was the fact of the podcast. The number one cause of penile injury was not zippers. Zippers were second. Number one was getting smashed by the toilet lid. How for real? Yeah, I mean you know they're they're right there at lid height. I guess so I was

forgetting about the height difference. Okay, that's sad. You got anything else, guys, I got nothing else? Well, that's zippers, everybody. Um, we made it through Zippers is the new Sun. And since I said zippers is the new Sun, it's time for a listener. Male. Ah, this is from Kirsten and we're gonna uh not exclusively, but I like reading these emails about how we're helping folks out during this weird, weird time of isolation, and this is this is one

of those. Hey, guys, thanks so much for the podcast. My boyfriend Matt introduced me The Stuff You Should Know a while back, and it has been a godsend for our relationship. You see on car rides and road trips, he always wants to listen to something that he will learn from. I, on the other hand, am much more interested in listening to something funny and lighthearted. Your podcast strikes the perfect balance. Every time we listen to your show, we always laugh together and we both learn a little

something too. Kirsten, we've been trying to explain that in such a sixtinct way for twelve years now. Yeah, that was really well done. Matt works in the I c U and has been working long hours amid the coronavirus pandemic. To pass the time alone at home, I've been listening to a lot of Stuff You Should know. So I

want to thank you guys for keeping me company. And if you wanted to give a shout out to Matt and all of our amazing healthcare workers across the country, that would be awesome and we certainly certainly want to do that. Yeah, give it up, like it's eight pm for all of the healthcare workers, including Matt. That's right. That is uh, you know, beyond everything that's going on with this there. It's not like everyone decided to take a break from getting hurt and needing to go to

the emergency room. Have you been Have you been more careful than usual just to make sure you don't, like accidentally need to go. No, I can't think about that stuff because that's when I will get hurt. I thought about it climbing up a ladder my house, Well, I don't know if I'd be doing a ladder work right now. I had to we looked like there was a carpenter b that made its way through our upper window, and I had to look, well, I'm glad you were careful,

but yeah, it's um. That kind of just hit me the other day that like, oh wait, there's still all the other hospital stuff that has to happen right now. Yeah, it's true. I have a friend who's a oh, our nurse. I believe even she was saying that she'd been basically furloughed for the moment because any elective surgery was um, you know, put on hold, which is understandable, but she was explaining that elective meant like your gall blighter needs to be removed, or you have a tumor that needs

to be removed. It was considered elective at least temporarily. I think that she's back at work again. But that's how bad it was. It was just like, if it doesn't have to do with COVID, no, just say no. Yeah, I mean I was. I was just about to schedule an eye surgery and uh, I'm definitely gonna wait a while to do that. Yeah, yeah, I can imagine, I can imagine. Um. Well that was great. Who is that from?

That was from Kirston and Matt. Yes, well, thanks a lot Kirston, and thanks a lot, Matt, and thanks a lot to everybody who's fighting the good fight on the front lines of the health care battle right now, looking out for all of us. Our hats are off to you. If you want to get in touch with us like Kirston Matt did. We'll get in touch of this via email. Wrap your email up to thank you do on the bottom, and send it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio

dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H