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Zippers: Humans’ Greatest Invention? No, But Still Good · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of My
0:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the
0:12
Speaker 1: podcast everybody. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck trans
0:16
Speaker 1: Drip Drip Drip Bryant over there. Jerry's somewhere out in
0:20
Speaker 1: the ether, floating along in an alternate dimension of chaos
0:25
Speaker 1: and disorder. Uh. And this is stuff you should know,
0:29
Speaker 1: that's right? Uh. Inventor series, well, sure, inventors in this case,
0:37
Speaker 1: lots of inventors. Um. First, I want to say check.
0:40
Speaker 1: I gotta fully prepare the studio, the little house studio.
0:44
Speaker 1: Here there we go. So I've just sprayed a couple
0:49
Speaker 1: of sprits is of Mama Brand Grapefruit tangerine aromatherapy room spray,
0:55
Speaker 1: and I'm feeling energized and ready to go. Oh good,
0:58
Speaker 1: that's very nice. That is some stuff, man. I need
1:01
Speaker 1: some of that in my basement. Oh you should have
1:03
Speaker 1: loads of it? I should? I do? I just don't
1:06
Speaker 1: have it down here? Where where could somebody find it
1:09
Speaker 1: if they weren't me already know where to find it?
1:11
Speaker 1: I wish you gotta love your Mama dot com and
1:13
Speaker 1: support small businesses that sell soap. When you need soap.
1:17
Speaker 1: Very nice, Chuck, very nice, and yes, I can attest.
1:19
Speaker 1: This is some fine room spray. And you're washing your
1:22
Speaker 1: hands a lot, so get some motion because you're probably dry.
1:25
Speaker 1: I'm just using the room spray as everything. Oh yeah, yeah, lotion, soap,
1:32
Speaker 1: what else you know? Essential oil? Stuff like that lip bomb,
1:36
Speaker 1: all all the good things to make you slippery. So,
1:40
Speaker 1: speaking of slippery, Chuck, you know something that's not really
1:45
Speaker 1: slippery when you use it correctly, a zipper. It's been
1:52
Speaker 1: a while, as far as the segway goes, so give
1:54
Speaker 1: me a break. It's been a while. Yeah, I I oh, oh,
2:00
Speaker 1: you just reminded me of something. Hold on, hold on,
2:03
Speaker 1: I'm very sorry. I gotta do this. I'm so glad
2:05
Speaker 1: you reminded me. Though. So you sang that song somehow
2:08
Speaker 1: it reminded me of breakfast at Tiffany's. That song that
2:13
Speaker 1: duo is friends with our buddy Toby hal Brooks. Toby
2:18
Speaker 1: hal Brooks and his lovely wife and Nell just had
2:23
Speaker 1: their first baby. Oh Toby had a baby. Yes, So
2:27
Speaker 1: congratulations to Toby and and Nell. They have a cute
2:30
Speaker 1: little baby too. I've seen a picture of her and
2:33
Speaker 1: she is adorable. So congrats guys, and way to go.
2:36
Speaker 1: That's amazing. I'm very happy for them. Toby is a
2:38
Speaker 1: great guy. And I don't know if I met his wife,
2:40
Speaker 1: have I It don't know. I don't think I have.
2:45
Speaker 1: Maybe it's south by Southwest. Maybe that was a long
2:48
Speaker 1: time ago. It was a while back. Yeah, I remember
2:51
Speaker 1: eating a drinking and eating Bloody Mary's with bacon and cheese,
2:56
Speaker 1: and that was one of those places that had it
2:59
Speaker 1: all in the glass. Yeah, it was nice at the
3:02
Speaker 1: Drexel Hotel. Right, Yeah, that was a good day or
3:05
Speaker 1: driscal dri driscyll all of that from It's been a while.
3:11
Speaker 1: So let's talk about buttons and then zippers. Okay, So
3:15
Speaker 1: I um thought that this was a pretty cool intro
3:18
Speaker 1: if you ask me, because if you think about zippers,
3:21
Speaker 1: you think zippers they're great. Who needs to think much
3:23
Speaker 1: about them? Well, you do, pal, because you are blessed
3:27
Speaker 1: to be living in an age where zippers exist. Because
3:30
Speaker 1: it was not too long ago, um about a hundred years,
3:34
Speaker 1: a little over a hundred years that there weren't zippers.
3:38
Speaker 1: You had a button basically, maybe some clasps, nothing that
3:42
Speaker 1: you were going to be happy dealing with. And most
3:45
Speaker 1: of the time. For most of human history, it was
3:47
Speaker 1: a button that was our only option to to to
3:50
Speaker 1: connect two pieces of fabric and hold it in place,
3:54
Speaker 1: which is more important than you would think. Chuck, the
3:56
Speaker 1: dumb clumsy button has been around. I think the earliest
4:01
Speaker 1: button that we found comes from a settlement settlement in
4:04
Speaker 1: the Indus Valley civilization which is now modern day Pakistan.
4:09
Speaker 1: Uh And it was a curbed shell. It's about five
4:12
Speaker 1: thousand years old. And buttons back then, this was sort
4:15
Speaker 1: of even pre buttonhole they were they were loops. Um.
4:20
Speaker 1: If you've ever had one of those cool old school
4:23
Speaker 1: uh well, some pea coats have the have the loops,
4:26
Speaker 1: some don't. But I'm kind of thinking of the the
4:29
Speaker 1: loop and bone thing that some of these kind of
4:32
Speaker 1: corduroy coats have had. Or like if you were a
4:35
Speaker 1: cape and probably you've probably encountered something like this. Yeah,
4:39
Speaker 1: my cape definitely has a loop and bone. One of
4:41
Speaker 1: my capes, say Pakistan, but like Sammy Davis Jr. Pakished
4:47
Speaker 1: on babe, very nice, very nice. So um, the button
4:53
Speaker 1: from what I understand though, from this, you know, five
4:56
Speaker 1: thousand years ago up to a little less than a
4:59
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. For the most part, it was just
5:01
Speaker 1: basically for showing off, you know, like, yeah, you could
5:04
Speaker 1: use it to clasp a couple of pieces of material together, whatever.
5:07
Speaker 1: But for the most part it was an adornment. It
5:09
Speaker 1: was like jewelry. And it wasn't until I think the
5:12
Speaker 1: thirteenth century that buttons started to be taken seriously for
5:17
Speaker 1: the first time, where you had the first button makers
5:20
Speaker 1: guild formed in France in twelve fifty. That was a
5:24
Speaker 1: big watershed moment in the history of buttons. Yeah, the French.
5:27
Speaker 1: They basically everyone was like, guys, we've had buttons for
5:29
Speaker 1: a long time. I think it's about time we start
5:31
Speaker 1: taking these things seriously. Yeah, this is it's been amateur,
5:34
Speaker 1: our bush league stuff up to this point. Let's let's
5:37
Speaker 1: get serious about buttons. And they did. So they really
5:39
Speaker 1: stopped and thought, well, we can make this better. Forget
5:42
Speaker 1: that loop that you put things through, and you know,
5:45
Speaker 1: the button can just fall right right back through. What
5:47
Speaker 1: if we make a hole in the actual fabric that
5:51
Speaker 1: we're trying to connect itself, so some edges around it
5:55
Speaker 1: and make what we'll eventually call a button hole. How
5:58
Speaker 1: about that? And this act really as simple as that
6:01
Speaker 1: is just made clothing technology jump by light years. Yeah,
6:07
Speaker 1: that was a big deal because, uh, those loops can
6:09
Speaker 1: break off, and often do, but sometimes they just dissolve
6:13
Speaker 1: in the sun. Yeah, those buttonholes did. They don't break
6:17
Speaker 1: I guess if you were really hard on them, they
6:19
Speaker 1: could eventually split to the seam. But there were a
6:22
Speaker 1: lot better than those loops. And you know, buttons they
6:26
Speaker 1: were the thing. They were around for a long time.
6:28
Speaker 1: They were just sort of the way that you've fastened
6:31
Speaker 1: two pieces of clothing together. But at some point someone
6:35
Speaker 1: was like, there's got to be a better way. Like
6:38
Speaker 1: every great invention, not every great imation, but many great
6:41
Speaker 1: inventions were built on someone trying to do something in
6:44
Speaker 1: a better way. Yeah, because I mean even when the
6:47
Speaker 1: buttons working on all four cylinders, which is as many
6:51
Speaker 1: as it has, there's still some real flaws in it,
6:55
Speaker 1: and that the fabric that you're pulling together and holding
6:59
Speaker 1: together with the uton might be held at the button point,
7:02
Speaker 1: but above and below that button there's a big old hole,
7:05
Speaker 1: and who knows what's sticking out of there, you know
7:07
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. I'm sure buttons can also pop off.
7:10
Speaker 1: There's some problems with it, and with those flaws like
7:13
Speaker 1: you're saying. Some people said, there's got to be a
7:15
Speaker 1: better way, and as a progression of people started to
7:19
Speaker 1: kind of vibe on the same idea, separately from what
7:23
Speaker 1: I understand. And the first of the bunch was a
7:26
Speaker 1: guy named Elias how Jr. Who in eighteen fifty one
7:29
Speaker 1: got himself a patent for a automatic continuous clothing closure.
7:36
Speaker 1: That's right, was what he called it. Not exactly catchy. Yeah.
7:39
Speaker 1: So his idea was, you you saw some reinforcements to
7:43
Speaker 1: a couple of edges of material that you want to
7:46
Speaker 1: you know, join together in wedded union, and you connect
7:50
Speaker 1: them with all these, uh class a series of clasps,
7:54
Speaker 1: but they are connected by a cord running or sliding
7:58
Speaker 1: as he says in the pattern up on ribs. Not
8:02
Speaker 1: the best invention, and it didn't work that great because
8:07
Speaker 1: they were clasps like this was the pred the predecessor
8:11
Speaker 1: of the zipper, to be sure it was. He was
8:13
Speaker 1: not on it like later inventors would be. No, but
8:17
Speaker 1: the idea of pulling on like a pull and moving
8:21
Speaker 1: like a mechanism across you know, two pieces of fabric,
8:27
Speaker 1: enjoining it together in its wake. That is the clearly
8:31
Speaker 1: the foundation of zippers, Like this guy clearly laid the
8:35
Speaker 1: foundation and probably would be considered the father of the zipper.
8:39
Speaker 1: But he left everything just sitting there in his patent.
8:43
Speaker 1: He never pursued it, and um, most people think that
8:45
Speaker 1: the reason he didn't pursue it because he had bigger
8:47
Speaker 1: fish to fry in the form of the modern sewing machine.
8:50
Speaker 1: He was also the inventor of the sewing machine, and
8:53
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm feel a little more bullish about the
8:55
Speaker 1: sewing machine than than the zipper. To use um clap
9:00
Speaker 1: seeing economy type terms. That's right. So the father of
9:03
Speaker 1: the zipperh is a man or generally known as this
9:06
Speaker 1: man from Chicago named Whitcomb Judson. This is about forty
9:13
Speaker 1: four years after Howe's had. How had filed his patent
9:17
Speaker 1: and he marketed and sold, which meant, you know, he
9:21
Speaker 1: kind of owned it then as a clasp blocker or
9:24
Speaker 1: unlocker for shoes, which, um, it was interesting that he
9:30
Speaker 1: was that narrow in his design. I think, I don't
9:35
Speaker 1: know if it was at the time. I think now
9:37
Speaker 1: you try and go as broad as you can with patents,
9:40
Speaker 1: But back then he was like, this thing works great
9:42
Speaker 1: for shoes, uh, and shoes are kind of a pain
9:46
Speaker 1: to put on, so that was what we're going to
9:48
Speaker 1: use them for. Yeah, I mean, he was like, this
9:50
Speaker 1: is a real problem because again, we have buttons mostly
9:54
Speaker 1: for shoes, and you know, because shoes were fairly form fitting,
10:00
Speaker 1: you needed a lot of buttons per inch in a
10:02
Speaker 1: row to really hold these two pieces of fabric together,
10:06
Speaker 1: one flap over another. So these buttons were small and
10:09
Speaker 1: they were sewn close together, so close in fact, that
10:12
Speaker 1: they invented another um UH invention called the button button hook,
10:19
Speaker 1: and it was like a little handheld harpoon, a mini
10:21
Speaker 1: harpoon with the hook on the end, and you would
10:24
Speaker 1: push it through the button hole and pull the button
10:27
Speaker 1: out with it, and you do this like eight ten
10:30
Speaker 1: thousand times per shoe. And that was how you put
10:33
Speaker 1: shoes on. So, I mean, I'm sure people just put
10:35
Speaker 1: shoes on once when they were grown adult and just
10:38
Speaker 1: didn't take them off until they were buried, you know.
10:41
Speaker 1: So he was trying to solve the solution with a
10:45
Speaker 1: poll that you could just kind of do the same
10:47
Speaker 1: thing with. And he he really took Alia's house, and
10:51
Speaker 1: again I'm not sure if it was because he was
10:52
Speaker 1: familiar with the patent or not um, but he he
10:56
Speaker 1: took that and basically said, this is this is worth pursuing,
11:00
Speaker 1: this is this is important stuff here. Yeah. So, like
11:04
Speaker 1: many great inventors, he got together with a business person,
11:08
Speaker 1: a man named Colonel Lewis Walker, because a lot of
11:11
Speaker 1: times inventors like to toil away in the shop and
11:14
Speaker 1: tinker with things, and they need like a real business
11:17
Speaker 1: brain to kind of run the show. Why is it
11:19
Speaker 1: always a colonel though, Why not like a major or general?
11:23
Speaker 1: Is it always a colonel? Yeah, Colonel Tom Parker, Colonel Sanders,
11:27
Speaker 1: Colonel Sanders, Colonel Bruce Springsteen, colonel colonel Colonel So he
11:35
Speaker 1: got together with Walker, Colonel Walker, and launched the Universal
11:40
Speaker 1: Fastener Company to manufacture and sell the Judson Security Fastener.
11:47
Speaker 1: Very clever there the letter c dash Curity Fastener. Uh
11:52
Speaker 1: And like so many huge products, were debuted at the
11:57
Speaker 1: Chicago World's Fair and was a huge hit it except
12:01
Speaker 1: that it wasn't No, And I have to say, admittedly
12:04
Speaker 1: it took me at least twice to realize it wasn't
12:07
Speaker 1: cocurret e. Really, yeah, it wasn't the first time. But
12:12
Speaker 1: so in that World's Fair, Um. They when they debuted it,
12:19
Speaker 1: this is have you ever read Devil in the White
12:21
Speaker 1: City before it? Man, you're really gonna like it, Chuck.
12:25
Speaker 1: But anyway, it was that world's fair. God the Guide
12:29
Speaker 1: us such a great job of describing that that world's fair,
12:32
Speaker 1: and like the importance of it. As far as I know,
12:34
Speaker 1: he doesn't mention zippers, but he may because he did
12:37
Speaker 1: some pretty good research obviously. But the whole thing was
12:39
Speaker 1: a flop for a couple of reasons. They were really
12:42
Speaker 1: unreliable at the time, and they were really expensive, and
12:47
Speaker 1: when you looked really closely at them, they still weren't
12:49
Speaker 1: what you'd recognize as zippers. They had little class, but
12:52
Speaker 1: it was a little class hook combo. And when you
12:56
Speaker 1: dragged this this mechanism up, the clasps were pulled toward
13:02
Speaker 1: one another and hooked. When you pulled it down they
13:05
Speaker 1: would be unhooked. You also could just do the whole
13:07
Speaker 1: thing by hand, but again it was still like this
13:10
Speaker 1: clearly the foundation for zippers, but it wasn't quite right. Um.
13:15
Speaker 1: Luckily whitcome Judson didn't give up. Instead, he hired a
13:19
Speaker 1: guy named Gideon son Back who basically came in and
13:23
Speaker 1: is in my opinion, the true father of the Zipper, right,
13:27
Speaker 1: I think that seems like a natural breakpoint. I thought,
13:31
Speaker 1: so to tease it there with Gideon son to back,
13:33
Speaker 1: and we will come right back and talk about son
13:36
Speaker 1: to Back right after this. I want to learn about
13:53
Speaker 1: astortic college, how to take a perfect but all about
13:56
Speaker 1: fractalkiscon un the Lizzie Border murders and the guy I've
14:00
Speaker 1: all runs on the plane every day that we should know.
14:07
Speaker 1: Ward up, Jerry, there was a hundred and ten percent
14:11
Speaker 1: chance that this is going to be a little sillier
14:13
Speaker 1: than average. What the zipper episode? Mhmm, all right, because
14:17
Speaker 1: they're so silly, they are so before we broke. I
14:21
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember you called Gideon son Back
14:23
Speaker 1: the true father of the zipper? Uh? He did I
14:29
Speaker 1: say that? I don't know, but he is the father
14:31
Speaker 1: of the zipper because he made what we all recognize
14:34
Speaker 1: as a zipper. He was Swedish born and he was
14:37
Speaker 1: an electrical engineer, which is kind of interesting. You would
14:41
Speaker 1: think mechanical, but I guess you just knew how to
14:43
Speaker 1: tinker with things. He was a bit of a show
14:45
Speaker 1: off apparently. Oh yeah, well, I mean he was an
14:48
Speaker 1: electrical engineer who who was the father of the zipper?
14:51
Speaker 1: Come on, oh, I got you. You know he was
14:54
Speaker 1: a glory hog, Colonel Bruce Prings. He was hired to
14:59
Speaker 1: work for that Universal Fastener company and he married the
15:04
Speaker 1: plant manager's daughter, one Elvira Aaronson. It's a great name, which, um,
15:10
Speaker 1: he was talented, so I'm not saying he got it
15:12
Speaker 1: sherely because of nepotism, but he did get a position
15:14
Speaker 1: as a head designer at that company, and he was like,
15:20
Speaker 1: this security fastener is okay, but it really ain't all that.
15:26
Speaker 1: His wife very sadly passed on in nineteen eleven, and
15:29
Speaker 1: that really just gave him the time to pour himself
15:32
Speaker 1: into a project. A couple of years later, December of
15:36
Speaker 1: about a being bought a boom. You've got the zipper. Yeah. Um.
15:40
Speaker 1: He created the hookless number one and the hookless number two,
15:44
Speaker 1: And he said in an interview later that like the
15:46
Speaker 1: key was getting rid of those hooks, terrible books, the hooks.
15:50
Speaker 1: Everyone was so sick of these stupid hooks. But when
15:53
Speaker 1: he came up with the hookless number one and the
15:55
Speaker 1: hookless number two, and the hookless number two is what
15:57
Speaker 1: you would say there's your modern zipper right there. It
16:00
Speaker 1: was such a big deal that UM the company changed
16:04
Speaker 1: its name from Universal Fastener to Hookless Fastener Company. So
16:09
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's pretty big. Like you know, you've
16:11
Speaker 1: kind of made it as the head designer if you
16:13
Speaker 1: design a product, and they changed the company name because
16:16
Speaker 1: of it. And in this patent that Sunback got um
16:21
Speaker 1: it basically it improved on that security fastener in a
16:26
Speaker 1: number of ways. Rather than I think four clasps per inch,
16:31
Speaker 1: he well, he changed the clasps to teeth. Was big
16:34
Speaker 1: first steps. And then rather than four clasps per inch,
16:38
Speaker 1: he added um at least ten or eleven teeth per inch.
16:43
Speaker 1: So the more teeth or the more points of contact
16:46
Speaker 1: where the fabrics joining together, the stronger that bond is
16:49
Speaker 1: going to be. Um He He also created something UM
16:55
Speaker 1: a machine to produce it with. And that's I think
16:57
Speaker 1: where his electrical engineering stuff came in. Yeah, the scrapless
17:01
Speaker 1: machine took this y shaped wire, cut these little scoops out,
17:05
Speaker 1: and then punch that scoop dimple and little nib and
17:09
Speaker 1: then clamped each one of those on a cloth tape.
17:12
Speaker 1: And all these words sound weird when you're just saying
17:15
Speaker 1: them like that. He invented the zipper. He did think
17:20
Speaker 1: of the zipper, looked down at your zipper, and that's
17:22
Speaker 1: what he did. That's what all those words mean. Yeah. Uh.
17:25
Speaker 1: And again, like the stuff he was working with the
17:27
Speaker 1: foundation wasn't like it wasn't a hop, skip and a jump.
17:31
Speaker 1: This guy like really he really contributed to the world basically. Yeah,
17:37
Speaker 1: and the world caught on. He was making a few
17:39
Speaker 1: hundred feet of these a day initially, and the US
17:44
Speaker 1: Army said, hey, these are great because here's what we've
17:48
Speaker 1: got going on. We don't have pockets on our sailors pants.
17:53
Speaker 1: I don't know why, and so they need to keep
17:55
Speaker 1: stuff in there. So we give everybody these little Fannie packs. Basically,
17:59
Speaker 1: these are money belts, and they're always losing their money,
18:03
Speaker 1: these sailors, so we gotta have these zippers. We need
18:06
Speaker 1: twenty four thousand of these to keep the sailor money
18:09
Speaker 1: inside their Fannie packs. Yeah. I think they just assumed
18:12
Speaker 1: that from that point on, anytime they went into port,
18:15
Speaker 1: they would come back with all of their money. It
18:17
Speaker 1: still didn't work, but it was clear they hadn't lost
18:20
Speaker 1: it along the way. They just spent it. All. Yeah,
18:22
Speaker 1: so twenty four thousand that year. Uh, in nineteen eighteen
18:27
Speaker 1: they ordered ten thousand for pilot flight suits, which makes sense.
18:34
Speaker 1: I gotta have those things. Yeah, sealed up and uh,
18:37
Speaker 1: it still wasn't called a zipper at this point though.
18:39
Speaker 1: That was the B. F. Good Rich company who actually
18:43
Speaker 1: used his fastener sunbacks on these galoshes that they put
18:47
Speaker 1: out in NT the notice that made a little zip sound,
18:51
Speaker 1: and so they called these boots zippers. It wasn't actually
18:54
Speaker 1: the zipper. They called the boots the zippers. Isn't that
18:57
Speaker 1: fascinating the first the first use of the word zipper
19:00
Speaker 1: described boots, not the zippers on the boots. Pretty cool.
19:04
Speaker 1: I love it, and be of good Rich. I think
19:07
Speaker 1: they still make at least souls for shoes too. Oh yeah, yeah.
19:13
Speaker 1: Imagine going to the store and buying a pair of
19:15
Speaker 1: BEF good Rich galoshes. You know those things are gonna last,
19:18
Speaker 1: I would think. So you're wearing tires right right, you
19:21
Speaker 1: can only buy them at the tire store, the most
19:23
Speaker 1: boring place on earth. Oh yeah, with the worst coffee
19:26
Speaker 1: and the worst magazines. Unless you're into monster trucking or
19:30
Speaker 1: bass fishing, right then you're in Hong Heaven. So for
19:35
Speaker 1: the first little bit, that's what the zipper was used for.
19:37
Speaker 1: They were used for boots, they were using the military.
19:40
Speaker 1: There were tobacco pouches. Uh, and I guess these little
19:43
Speaker 1: money belts, and they weren't used on clothes. Though. It
19:46
Speaker 1: took about twenty years for the fashion industry to come
19:49
Speaker 1: around and say, you know, I think these beat the
19:53
Speaker 1: button in the class. Yeah, and for a couple of reasons. One,
19:58
Speaker 1: these early zippers were not the best. They didn't work
20:02
Speaker 1: every time, they would wear out pretty quickly, and they
20:05
Speaker 1: were still rather expensive. This is like cutting edge technology
20:08
Speaker 1: at the time. Zippers were not cheap. Um. But one
20:12
Speaker 1: of the other big reasons why zippers took a while
20:15
Speaker 1: to catch on even after they started being used in
20:18
Speaker 1: men's wear, um, was because they were viewed as improper
20:23
Speaker 1: for women, which I hadn't heard of, ed you No,
20:26
Speaker 1: I mean it doesn't surprise me, but it's hysterical and
20:30
Speaker 1: awful to think about the fact that they didn't initially
20:33
Speaker 1: want zippers because it made it way too easy for
20:36
Speaker 1: women to take their clothes off. Yeah, like like that
20:39
Speaker 1: would just be it, like, oh, well, I can take
20:41
Speaker 1: my clothes off a little more easily than I could
20:44
Speaker 1: if these were buttons. So I'm going to become promiscuous
20:46
Speaker 1: as a result. Yeah, just because that extra thirty seconds,
20:50
Speaker 1: the mood passes. Yeah, it's true. Like well, yeah, I mean,
20:54
Speaker 1: if you have trouble getting buttons off, I could see
20:56
Speaker 1: getting frustrated, that could kill the mood. So maybe they
20:58
Speaker 1: were onto something. But in the in the movie of set,
21:02
Speaker 1: during this time, the tawdry couple rips opened the bodice
21:06
Speaker 1: and they all laugh as as clasps are falling to
21:08
Speaker 1: the floor. Yeah, it's true, it's true. Zipper is not
21:11
Speaker 1: as funny. No, but it does make a seductive per
21:15
Speaker 1: when it's pulled down at just the right just the
21:18
Speaker 1: right timing hit in the right speed. It's titillating. It's arousing,
21:24
Speaker 1: like yeah, there's nothing more tittilating than a quick little
21:26
Speaker 1: it's open right like no, no, we're more of a man.
21:35
Speaker 1: You gotta stop. Isn't that nice? Yeah? This is it's
21:37
Speaker 1: getting little warmed down here in the bag. I know.
21:39
Speaker 1: I'm glad we're not in the same room right now. So, uh,
21:44
Speaker 1: Corset's especially found the zipper. The corset industry was like,
21:49
Speaker 1: no way, are we going to use those vulgar zippers
21:52
Speaker 1: on these things. We have morals where the fashion industry,
21:56
Speaker 1: and they were even designers Elsa and Edward Malan No
22:04
Speaker 1: or Malan new they were sort of sort of teasing
22:08
Speaker 1: the establishment by purposefully including zippers and saying like, we
22:13
Speaker 1: don't even need these, but look, we're doing it anyway
22:15
Speaker 1: because it's the nineteen thirties in your face establishment. That's right,
22:19
Speaker 1: button establishment, so right. One of the other big things, um,
22:26
Speaker 1: that pushed things forward was the use of zippers and jeans,
22:30
Speaker 1: And to this day there is a long standing debate
22:36
Speaker 1: that I read about on the Levi's five oh one
22:38
Speaker 1: Blues blog Wow, between zippers and button jeans, And apparently
22:47
Speaker 1: there's purists who are like buttons were first. They were
22:49
Speaker 1: on the first pair of Levi's back in three I think, um,
22:53
Speaker 1: because they didn't have anything better. Basically, yeah, zipper people say,
22:57
Speaker 1: well yeah, and then zippers came along and we didn't
22:59
Speaker 1: need buttons anymore. Stuff living in the past, man, um.
23:02
Speaker 1: But there's still an ongoing debate and raising debate. But
23:06
Speaker 1: if you were to travel back to the nineteen thirties
23:09
Speaker 1: and pick up a copy of Esquire magazine, you would
23:12
Speaker 1: find that the Battle of the Fly, I believe is
23:15
Speaker 1: what it was called, was declared dead, and that the
23:18
Speaker 1: zipper one was around back then. Oh yeah, they're nice, Yeah,
23:24
Speaker 1: just cutting edge stuff. I am not opposed to a
23:27
Speaker 1: five oh one button fly. I agree that it's kind
23:30
Speaker 1: of classic. I'm generally a zipper guy, but I don't
23:36
Speaker 1: mind a button fly. I well, I was reading a
23:39
Speaker 1: recent Esquire right up about the nineteen thirties Esquire right up,
23:45
Speaker 1: which is kind of weird now I think about it.
23:47
Speaker 1: But um, they were saying, like, yes, the button does
23:50
Speaker 1: have some advantages. It's a lot harder to forget when
23:54
Speaker 1: you leave the bathroom than it is you know, your fly. Um,
23:59
Speaker 1: but it's harder to open up when you really need
24:01
Speaker 1: to pee. That's a big problem. And as an adult
24:04
Speaker 1: you can kind of regulate that, right, No, not me.
24:07
Speaker 1: I have that brain bladder connection, like going full bore. Yeah,
24:11
Speaker 1: I guess I can see that. So like having to
24:13
Speaker 1: fumble with buttons while you're like about to just pee yourself,
24:16
Speaker 1: it's not a good thing. But anyway, Esquire also put
24:20
Speaker 1: it like this. Um they said that the button fly
24:24
Speaker 1: also adds bulk, but not in the desirable spinal tap
24:28
Speaker 1: way in a do you have some sort of terrible
24:31
Speaker 1: condition way, it's pretty great. So I think they're right
24:36
Speaker 1: there kind of wins the zipper debate. Yeah, well, you
24:40
Speaker 1: know the other thing that won't happen with the button flies.
24:42
Speaker 1: You're not gonna you're not gonna pull a something about
24:45
Speaker 1: Mary moment. Hey, we'll say that for the end. I'm
24:50
Speaker 1: just saying, alright, So, uh. In the nineties, we've got
24:54
Speaker 1: children's clothing being a big sort of sales pitch for
24:58
Speaker 1: zippers because they're like, hey, you want a kid that
25:01
Speaker 1: can put their own clothes on and get to that
25:03
Speaker 1: factory super fast, give them zippers. So um, I think
25:10
Speaker 1: that's pretty genius. Actually, yeah, I mean he want he
25:14
Speaker 1: wants to. I mean buttoning up a child's clothing is
25:17
Speaker 1: the worst, right, especially if you have to use one
25:21
Speaker 1: of a very dangerous button hook to do it. Yeah,
25:23
Speaker 1: it's just not a good idea. You don't want to
25:25
Speaker 1: get that anywhere near a kid. So, as is usual
25:28
Speaker 1: with fashion, the children's fashion leads the way, um, and
25:33
Speaker 1: paved the way for zippers to come in. Like I said,
25:35
Speaker 1: to men's trousers. Eventually, women's clothing and then women's genes.
25:39
Speaker 1: Zippers were finally added to jeans because of women. Apparently
25:43
Speaker 1: Western women were totally fine with the buttonfly, but back
25:47
Speaker 1: East they were a little more modest and decided the
25:49
Speaker 1: buttonfly allowed too much breeze to blow through, and so
25:53
Speaker 1: Levi's added zippers to their jeans to try to market
25:56
Speaker 1: them to women in the East and the mid forties.
25:58
Speaker 1: I'm surprised women were wearing jeans in the mid forties.
26:01
Speaker 1: I was surprised by that too. Smells like Catherine Hepburn's
26:04
Speaker 1: work if you ask me, But on those jeans, ladies,
26:11
Speaker 1: that was amazing. So these I used to do a
26:14
Speaker 1: pretty good Catherine Herburn. That was not my best effort,
26:16
Speaker 1: it was still pretty good. Uh, you old poop. So
26:21
Speaker 1: they went from producing the Hookless Fastener Company twenty four
26:26
Speaker 1: thousand zippers that first year in nineteen seventeen in nineteen
26:31
Speaker 1: thirty four sixty million, by nineteen seventy one two point
26:36
Speaker 1: three billion, Yes founding, and by nine seventy one they
26:42
Speaker 1: had changed their name again from Universal Fastener to Hookless
26:45
Speaker 1: Fastener to now Talent. Make a note of that. Oh
26:49
Speaker 1: that's right, Yeah, I put a little pin in that Okay,
26:52
Speaker 1: so uh, these were zippers that were uh and we
26:57
Speaker 1: have all the name. These were called closed ends sippers.
27:00
Speaker 1: That is, it's on a pair of jeans or something.
27:03
Speaker 1: It's not like you're trying to put together to completely
27:06
Speaker 1: unattached things like a jacket. Let's say, right, that would
27:11
Speaker 1: be the next big thing that yeah. So yeah, there's
27:14
Speaker 1: actually apparently three main kinds of zippers which I wasn't
27:17
Speaker 1: aware of. But the the the ones like on jeans
27:21
Speaker 1: or whatever, that's the close end. The ones separate like
27:25
Speaker 1: on a jacket or something like that that opens all
27:28
Speaker 1: the way. Those are open end. And then you've got
27:31
Speaker 1: the show offs of the zipper world, the two way zippers.
27:34
Speaker 1: They think they're all that, yeah, but apparently, and there's
27:37
Speaker 1: like all sorts of subcategories to like, for example, there's
27:40
Speaker 1: the two way closed zipper where when the when you
27:44
Speaker 1: open the thing you have to pull, the zipper slides
27:47
Speaker 1: toward one another and when they meet they keep one
27:50
Speaker 1: another from from sliding off or opening further. But if
27:54
Speaker 1: you look at the say suitcase or whatever, it actually
27:57
Speaker 1: forms an X with the two zippers lines in the middle.
28:00
Speaker 1: That's an X type two way closed zipper in industry lingo. Yeah,
28:08
Speaker 1: and it's here that I should point out that, um
28:11
Speaker 1: something that I don't think I've ever talked about much
28:13
Speaker 1: on the show. But I am a bag enthusiast. Oh yeah, backpacks,
28:18
Speaker 1: luggage over the shoulder, bags, messenger bags, Merses, I've got.
28:24
Speaker 1: I do have a merse um. Shout out to nut Sack, Merses, No, No,
28:32
Speaker 1: and ut Dash s A C. Sure it's great. Still
28:36
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter now it's that's the name of the company.
28:40
Speaker 1: Oh got, It's got a little acorn on the front
28:43
Speaker 1: of it. That's it's very cheeky, obviously, But I stand
28:46
Speaker 1: by my Nutsack. It's great. Let me ask you, how
28:50
Speaker 1: did you end up becoming like a bad guy. I
28:54
Speaker 1: don't know, man, there's something about finding the perfect bad
29:00
Speaker 1: bag with all there's something about all the compartments that
29:03
Speaker 1: fit just the right things. I don't know. I think
29:05
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit of a O. C. D spectrum
29:09
Speaker 1: thing um that I've talked about here and there over
29:11
Speaker 1: the years, with stepping on cracks and doing certain things
29:15
Speaker 1: an equal amount of times with each foot in each hand,
29:18
Speaker 1: Like I don't let it drive me or control me.
29:21
Speaker 1: But all that stuff is in there and I think
29:23
Speaker 1: it has something to do with my bag thing is
29:26
Speaker 1: having seeking out the perfect bag that holds all of
29:29
Speaker 1: my things in exactly the right way. Very nice. But
29:32
Speaker 1: I mean, when did this start? Was it like middle school,
29:35
Speaker 1: high school? College? I think I always was sort of
29:38
Speaker 1: into them, but like I was happy to just have
29:40
Speaker 1: the backpack that was just okay because I was young
29:44
Speaker 1: and broke. But now that I'm an adult, you know,
29:47
Speaker 1: I can I can try a couple of different bags
29:49
Speaker 1: out and I recycled them. I don't have a room
29:51
Speaker 1: full of bags. Emily will will disagree and say that
29:54
Speaker 1: I have far too many bags and some that don't
29:56
Speaker 1: get used. But I did just recently sell a bag
30:00
Speaker 1: um to to a guy like how like on the
30:04
Speaker 1: street now it was I put it on Facebook and
30:06
Speaker 1: it was ended up going to a husband of someone
30:08
Speaker 1: I knew that. He was like, he wants this thing.
30:10
Speaker 1: I was like great, so um, anyway, I have a
30:14
Speaker 1: bad thing. And there's a sub category of people on
30:18
Speaker 1: the internet travel people that are really into bags and
30:22
Speaker 1: especially zippers. That's where this all comes in. There is
30:25
Speaker 1: a lot of zipper talk on these sites because they're
30:29
Speaker 1: not all designed well and you've got to have a
30:31
Speaker 1: really great zipper system in order to be a great bag.
30:35
Speaker 1: That is the thing. That's one of the best easiest
30:38
Speaker 1: ways you can tell a knockoff bag, even a well
30:40
Speaker 1: made knockoff bag, from the real thing is how good
30:43
Speaker 1: is the zipper? Yeah, I get the impression that really
30:46
Speaker 1: nice zippers aren't the cheapest things to include in a bag. No. No,
30:51
Speaker 1: because anybody can dash off a zipper. Yeah, we could
30:54
Speaker 1: make one right now if we wanted to. Sure it
30:56
Speaker 1: was arts and crafts time, but it's not. It's talking time.
31:00
Speaker 1: It we couldn't make a really well made zipper. No.
31:04
Speaker 1: And a complaint you will see oftentimes on these websites
31:08
Speaker 1: is travel websites is great bag. But boy, why did
31:11
Speaker 1: they put this zipper on this thing? Right? And so,
31:13
Speaker 1: I mean, when you put a zipper on a bag
31:15
Speaker 1: or a pair of jeans or something like that, it
31:18
Speaker 1: is done, like there's not any any redoing this this thing. Like,
31:22
Speaker 1: if it's a good zipper, great, If it's a bad zipper,
31:25
Speaker 1: you just ruined the bag or ruined the jeans. And
31:27
Speaker 1: then once the zipper inevitable inevitably breaks, the bag is useless.
31:32
Speaker 1: The genes are useless, and that's actually a mark in
31:35
Speaker 1: the favor of buttons. You can replace a button that
31:37
Speaker 1: pops off when the zipper breaks, Yeah, you can fix it.
31:40
Speaker 1: There's definitely videos on how to deal with different um
31:43
Speaker 1: zipper issues. But when it's broken, broken, there's there's it's
31:49
Speaker 1: a problem. It's a lot more of a problem than
31:51
Speaker 1: when a button pops off, I guess, is what I'm
31:53
Speaker 1: trying to say. Yeah, I agree. Um, And here's the
31:57
Speaker 1: point where we uh where I'm going to call on you.
32:00
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll take a break. I knew you were going
32:02
Speaker 1: to do this. I am because you somehow made describing
32:06
Speaker 1: how a zipper works confusing. So this is on you
32:10
Speaker 1: and we'll talk. Josh will explain exactly how a zipper works.
32:13
Speaker 1: Right after this. Oh man, I want to learn about
32:31
Speaker 1: a rosortic college actol, how to take a perfect with
32:33
Speaker 1: all about fractal kiscon that's a little hun the Lizzie
32:36
Speaker 1: Border murders, that they kind of all runs on the plane.
32:38
Speaker 1: Everything that's we should know. Word up, Jerry, So let
32:47
Speaker 1: me think of some movies. Uh have you seen? Have
32:53
Speaker 1: you seen Altered Carbon? I know it's not a movie,
32:55
Speaker 1: it's a good TV show though. I have not. That's good. Um,
33:00
Speaker 1: I already talked about ozarks recently. Right, are you putting
33:02
Speaker 1: this off? Yeah? All right. I'll describe how to use
33:07
Speaker 1: a zipper because I didn't realize this before. Did you
33:11
Speaker 1: know just how a zipper worked? You did not? I did?
33:16
Speaker 1: You can look at it and tell how it works. Well,
33:19
Speaker 1: I've looked at plenty of zippers, and I guess it
33:21
Speaker 1: hasn't sunk in. I finally had to read what's going
33:23
Speaker 1: on down there? Magic? I thought a little magic wizard
33:26
Speaker 1: lived in each zipper slide and would be like Alec Gazoo.
33:31
Speaker 1: I think what you're saying is you didn't realize all
33:33
Speaker 1: those parts had names. Maybe that's definitely part of it,
33:38
Speaker 1: but no, I also didn't understand the physics. I'm gonna
33:41
Speaker 1: do this. You're ready, stand back? So uh. With every
33:45
Speaker 1: kind of zipper, you have teeth, and you put the
33:48
Speaker 1: teeth together and you have a zipper chain. You have
33:51
Speaker 1: the thing that moves up and down the zipper that's
33:53
Speaker 1: called the slide, and the slide itself is usually made
33:57
Speaker 1: up of the slide body that the zipper teeth go through,
34:00
Speaker 1: a bridge that's connected to the slide body, and a
34:03
Speaker 1: puller or a tab that's connected to the bridge. Okay, okay,
34:10
Speaker 1: So when these teeth are manufacturers will talk about in
34:14
Speaker 1: a second. They're made so that they're all the exact
34:17
Speaker 1: same size and shape, but then when they're connected, they're offset,
34:22
Speaker 1: so that if you take two teeth in between the teeth,
34:26
Speaker 1: a little hole or hollow or valley forms and the
34:30
Speaker 1: teeth on the opposite side of the fabric that's going
34:32
Speaker 1: to be connected. The tooth fits into that hollow just so,
34:37
Speaker 1: but it doesn't fit in just so so that it
34:40
Speaker 1: could just pull right out. It has a little hook
34:42
Speaker 1: on the end of it, and so when the slide
34:45
Speaker 1: body comes in contact with the teeth on either side,
34:49
Speaker 1: it has like wedges inside the slide body that kick
34:53
Speaker 1: those teeth up at an angle or down at an angle,
34:56
Speaker 1: and it also pulls them together. So it actually takes
35:00
Speaker 1: the tooth and puts it at an angle so that
35:03
Speaker 1: it fits into the hollow between the other two teeth
35:05
Speaker 1: on the other side. And then as it passes by,
35:09
Speaker 1: that tooth goes back to horizontal and it's locked in.
35:13
Speaker 1: The little hook on the end locks it into that hollow,
35:16
Speaker 1: and from being locked in, it provides stability for the
35:19
Speaker 1: teeth that are connected on either side above it, and
35:21
Speaker 1: so on and so forth, so that as the slide
35:24
Speaker 1: finally reaches at the top, it hits a stop which
35:27
Speaker 1: keeps the slide from going off the end um. And
35:30
Speaker 1: it's done. It's a little job when it comes back down.
35:33
Speaker 1: When you pull down on the slide to un zip,
35:36
Speaker 1: it actually uses a reverse wedge of plow to kick
35:39
Speaker 1: those wedges back up and separate them so that they
35:42
Speaker 1: can easily the hook tooth can easily pull out of
35:46
Speaker 1: the hollow and separate. And that, friend, is how a
35:50
Speaker 1: zipper works. That's great. Oh, I haven't pressed your court.
35:58
Speaker 1: I just went ahead of Mike's mighty good ramen. I
36:01
Speaker 1: had one of those two. I had the kimchi one
36:03
Speaker 1: out of the pork um. That was good, chuck. If
36:07
Speaker 1: you hadn't it checked out, you would. I was frankly
36:09
Speaker 1: expecting a little round of applause. Oh, people are clapping
36:12
Speaker 1: all over the world right now. Good good, Okay, So
36:15
Speaker 1: it is great. Uh. It's such an elegant design because
36:19
Speaker 1: what you're doing here, and it's easy to take for granted,
36:21
Speaker 1: but what you are tasked with with doing with making
36:24
Speaker 1: a quality zipper is making something that is very very
36:29
Speaker 1: easy to zip up and down or back and forth,
36:32
Speaker 1: because you don't want that thing to get hung up
36:34
Speaker 1: or to be hard to pull. It's got to be
36:37
Speaker 1: really easy, but it also has to be super super secure.
36:41
Speaker 1: And the and the marriage of those two things I
36:43
Speaker 1: think is kind of really speaks to the elegance of
36:46
Speaker 1: the design of the zipper exactly. And the more the
36:49
Speaker 1: more well designed and well manufactured the teeth are, the
36:56
Speaker 1: tighter that bind is going to be, yeah, because they
37:01
Speaker 1: fit together so precisely. Yeah, if you've had zipper problems
37:04
Speaker 1: and bad zippers, that's when it that's when you really
37:09
Speaker 1: need to to thank your lucky stars that people are
37:12
Speaker 1: out there designing and making great zippers, right, which are
37:17
Speaker 1: just too expensive to easily be attained. Or like when
37:21
Speaker 1: that stop doesn't work and you go to zip up
37:23
Speaker 1: at that jacket and all of a sudden, you're you're
37:25
Speaker 1: holding that bull tab and the bridge right like a dummy. Yeah,
37:31
Speaker 1: so there are things there. It's the worst you can
37:35
Speaker 1: So there's actually little clamps that you can put on
37:38
Speaker 1: a zipper broken zipper. I saw a video about this
37:41
Speaker 1: that fit in between like the top two teeth on
37:45
Speaker 1: either side, and then you just take some need on
37:47
Speaker 1: those pliers and basically clamp it on the on the
37:50
Speaker 1: inside and outside of the zipper fabric tape and that
37:54
Speaker 1: will stop that slide. So if the slide ever comes off,
37:57
Speaker 1: because this one of the stops broke off, you can
38:00
Speaker 1: actually take um not at all drastic measures to fix
38:04
Speaker 1: your zipper. Not me, man, I throw that jacket in
38:06
Speaker 1: the garbage right to set it on fire force at
38:10
Speaker 1: least all the methane inside. I do, and then I
38:12
Speaker 1: sweep up the ashes, a urinate on them, and I
38:15
Speaker 1: put it in the garbage. You turn it into a
38:18
Speaker 1: six pack ring and throw it into the ocean. Now
38:23
Speaker 1: that is a good tip actually, because there are ways
38:24
Speaker 1: to darn socks and fix zippers. And we live in
38:28
Speaker 1: a disposable society. So if you have a cheap zipper,
38:31
Speaker 1: or you know, if you really like a jacket and
38:33
Speaker 1: it has a terrible zipper, you could take it to
38:35
Speaker 1: a place and they could probably put the zipper of
38:37
Speaker 1: choice on there. But that's a lot of work. It
38:39
Speaker 1: is a lot of work. There are things that you
38:41
Speaker 1: can do yourself. You can also um if the zipper
38:44
Speaker 1: slide is not doing a very good job any longer
38:47
Speaker 1: of connecting the teeth. It's probably because the wedges inside
38:52
Speaker 1: are a little loose, a little far apart. Again, needle
38:55
Speaker 1: nose pliers are your best friend. Pinch the zippers from
38:58
Speaker 1: the side and from the front and back. You're not
39:00
Speaker 1: the zipper the slide mechanism. Sorry, and it will, um,
39:04
Speaker 1: it will. It'll produce a tighter grip on the zipper
39:08
Speaker 1: teeth from that point on. Again, basically you're breathing new
39:11
Speaker 1: life into your zipper slide. Yeah, and uh failed to
39:15
Speaker 1: mention that I'm also an outdoorsman and camper my whole life,
39:18
Speaker 1: so aside from my bag fetish um sleeping bags intense.
39:23
Speaker 1: That's a real big deal to have the right zipper
39:26
Speaker 1: on those things. Yeah, that'll that. This the worst is
39:30
Speaker 1: and especially on tense, the design such that, um, when
39:35
Speaker 1: you're zipping it, the little flap gets zipped up in
39:37
Speaker 1: the zipper. Yes, that's pretty bad. It's awful. It is,
39:42
Speaker 1: um and that's something you can deal with yourself. But
39:45
Speaker 1: zippers can also get stuck over time, especially if it's
39:49
Speaker 1: a metal zipper and it's starting to corrode. They don't
39:52
Speaker 1: like to slide nearly as much. There are little things,
39:55
Speaker 1: little tip tips and tricks you can do to unstick
39:57
Speaker 1: a zipper that's a little corroded. One of the first
39:59
Speaker 1: things you can do is take a graphite pencil and
40:02
Speaker 1: rub it on the teeth just below the zipper. And
40:06
Speaker 1: graphites a dry lubricant and it'll help you unzip it
40:09
Speaker 1: if the If the pencil doesn't work, try a little
40:12
Speaker 1: bit of bar soap, dry bar soap, and if that
40:15
Speaker 1: doesn't work, to spray a little squirt tiny stream of
40:18
Speaker 1: windex on there and let it sit for a little
40:20
Speaker 1: while and that should unzip your corroded or gunky zipper too. Yeah,
40:25
Speaker 1: very good tips here from Uncle Josh. Right. So there's
40:30
Speaker 1: some other things, Like we just basically described how zipper works.
40:33
Speaker 1: What is zippers made out of um? Or what the
40:35
Speaker 1: components are. There are some other things that they make
40:38
Speaker 1: some little fancy dancy kind of a kouchruma to zippers um.
40:42
Speaker 1: One of the things UH that comes in handy is, say,
40:46
Speaker 1: like with a tent or something, when you want the
40:48
Speaker 1: zipper to stay up, is a locking slide to where
40:52
Speaker 1: it won't like you could pull the zipper apart and
40:55
Speaker 1: it won't come apart because that slide won't move. It
40:57
Speaker 1: only moves when you pull on the tab because it
41:00
Speaker 1: lifts the locking mechanism as you slide up or down.
41:03
Speaker 1: That's a good one. They also make magnetic zippers, which
41:06
Speaker 1: is good for one handed zipping and unzipping. It's amazing.
41:10
Speaker 1: I think so too. So let's talk a little bit
41:12
Speaker 1: about how it's made and then we're going to bring
41:15
Speaker 1: it home with a little manufacturing and medical action. Okay, Yeah,
41:20
Speaker 1: so zippers, it depends on what it's made out of. Obviously,
41:23
Speaker 1: with how it's made. UM a lot of zippers, you'll
41:26
Speaker 1: see her metal um. They can be flat or they
41:29
Speaker 1: can be profiled. They can be made of aluminium, nickel, brass, nickel,
41:36
Speaker 1: free white brass, nickel, aluminum, brass, aminium right, nickelodeon. I'm
41:47
Speaker 1: just reporting what I found on the internet, not making
41:49
Speaker 1: fun of you. Uh. They can be die cast out
41:52
Speaker 1: of zinc alloy directly onto that tape and you end
41:55
Speaker 1: up just sewing that or gluing that onto the material.
41:58
Speaker 1: And I imagined that might be a bit of a
42:01
Speaker 1: more robust zipper. Yeah. The that that machine that Gideon's
42:06
Speaker 1: sunback Um came up with is still The design principle
42:11
Speaker 1: of it is still in use in some zipper manufacturers
42:14
Speaker 1: where they take wire and just like pinch and pull
42:16
Speaker 1: and clamp the zipper teeth out of wire onto this
42:22
Speaker 1: zipper tape the fabric that's going to be put onto
42:25
Speaker 1: the material that the zippers applied to you. That's right.
42:29
Speaker 1: If you're working with plastic, there's basically two main ways.
42:33
Speaker 1: And I saw really great how it's made. It's like
42:35
Speaker 1: five minutes long, but it just explains it all um.
42:38
Speaker 1: With plastic, there's a couple of reasons why you would
42:41
Speaker 1: want plastic. You can actually manufacture plastic two more precise
42:45
Speaker 1: design specifications if you're doing it right than metal zipper,
42:49
Speaker 1: which means that it may actually provide a stronger grip.
42:52
Speaker 1: It also doesn't corrode, although metal zippers are typically thought
42:56
Speaker 1: of as is tougher over time, but they they they
43:00
Speaker 1: will corrode. Plastic doesn't corrode. But if you're making plastic,
43:03
Speaker 1: you can make it a couple of ways. One you
43:05
Speaker 1: can make it basically just like a metal zippers made
43:09
Speaker 1: by die casting it. And then another way is to
43:12
Speaker 1: actually print it onto the tape, so like the whole
43:17
Speaker 1: zipper to the exact length you want is just basically
43:21
Speaker 1: formed and melted onto the fabric tape, and then there's
43:25
Speaker 1: your zipperty. It can be super super solid. It's not
43:29
Speaker 1: like a plastic zipper has to be cheap, no uh.
43:33
Speaker 1: And then if you want a flexible plastic zipper, there's
43:36
Speaker 1: something called a woven coil nylon zipper. And you've probably
43:41
Speaker 1: seen this before, like on a dress that's meant to
43:43
Speaker 1: have movement or something like that. It's a it's a
43:46
Speaker 1: very thin um it's almost like a nest of of
43:52
Speaker 1: nylon woven on either side, and the zipper just moves
43:55
Speaker 1: up and down it. You've seen those before, I'm sure
43:59
Speaker 1: I have. Don't play me bro. Most of my dresses
44:03
Speaker 1: require movement, that's for sure. So I think we should
44:07
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about y K k uh. If
44:10
Speaker 1: you've ever looked down and seen a zipper, the chances
44:12
Speaker 1: are you have if you've ever worn any article of
44:15
Speaker 1: clothing and seeing y KK. That stands for Yoshida Kogyo
44:20
Speaker 1: Kabushiki Kasha, which is UM a Japanese company that makes these.
44:26
Speaker 1: Where else making Georgia. Yeah, that's like their biggest plan
44:30
Speaker 1: is in making Yeah, and I knew it was in making.
44:33
Speaker 1: Actually they make about five million zippers a day. Uh.
44:36
Speaker 1: They started making zippers the Japanese company in four They
44:41
Speaker 1: make theirs out of copper alloy, and they're really smart.
44:45
Speaker 1: This is a company that UM. They build the machines
44:49
Speaker 1: that make the zippers, they build the boxes and make
44:51
Speaker 1: the boxes that they ship them in. So they have
44:54
Speaker 1: a lot of control over the the pricing of their
44:59
Speaker 1: supply chain, which is a great way to make a
45:02
Speaker 1: lot more money than you would if you were outsourcing
45:05
Speaker 1: that stuff right exactly. And so y k K kind
45:08
Speaker 1: of came up. They started in the ninety four, but
45:11
Speaker 1: by nineteen seventy they really started to take over the
45:15
Speaker 1: zipper industry, so much so that prior to nineteen seventy
45:19
Speaker 1: a little company called Talent, which you might know of
45:22
Speaker 1: as the hookless fastener company, UM had seventy percent of
45:26
Speaker 1: the market share. Seven out of all ten zippers that
45:29
Speaker 1: you found in the world were made by Talent, And
45:32
Speaker 1: by nineteen seventy one suddenly y KK had like of that,
45:37
Speaker 1: and they were the big kid on the block for
45:39
Speaker 1: decades until basically recently, when UM some Chinese firms started
45:43
Speaker 1: to really come up to yeah, and the Chinese firms.
45:46
Speaker 1: There used to be hundreds of these and they have
45:50
Speaker 1: now sort of been consolidated down to like how many
45:54
Speaker 1: do they have over there now? Yeah, but there's really
45:57
Speaker 1: two big ones now, SPS and y KK. Right, and
46:02
Speaker 1: a lot of these Chinese companies will be called things
46:05
Speaker 1: like y q Q or y c C right obviously
46:09
Speaker 1: trying to uh sort of rip off the y k
46:11
Speaker 1: K company. And it's like any business where there are
46:14
Speaker 1: some big, big players, there's fierce, fierce rivalries in the
46:17
Speaker 1: zipper industry. Yumi said that when she was a kid,
46:21
Speaker 1: her mom wouldn't buy something if the zipper wasn't y KK.
46:24
Speaker 1: Sure you know it's quality zipper right there, made by
46:28
Speaker 1: relatives of the Allman Brothers problem. That's right, that's where
46:31
Speaker 1: the museum is so um. So that's why y KK
46:36
Speaker 1: has found on most your zippers because of this company
46:39
Speaker 1: that has been doing this for a very long time. Right,
46:41
Speaker 1: It's pretty amazing. And I feel like, Chuck, we would
46:44
Speaker 1: be remiss in talking about zippers if we also didn't
46:48
Speaker 1: talk about, as you kind of teased earlier, Genitalia getting
46:52
Speaker 1: caught in zippers, which is one of the big drawbacks
46:56
Speaker 1: of zipper technology. Yeah, the very famous Signfelt episode when
47:00
Speaker 1: he's remarking about his button flies. You want to do
47:03
Speaker 1: your best Jerry Seinfeld. Here, this is the one place
47:07
Speaker 1: on my wardrobe. I do not need sharp, inter locking
47:10
Speaker 1: metal tee. Oh I think you had Seinfeld confused with
47:15
Speaker 1: Silence of the Lambs. Which fun Buffalo Bill or Hannibal
47:20
Speaker 1: elector Seinfeld of the Lambs. Oh wait, let me see
47:23
Speaker 1: if I do it. Just do one place on my wardrobe.
47:27
Speaker 1: I do not need sharpen or locking metal tea. Except
47:32
Speaker 1: he would not have a zipper on his kimono. Was
47:34
Speaker 1: that better or worse the second time? I don't know.
47:37
Speaker 1: They were both great. I think worse. I'm going with
47:41
Speaker 1: so Yeah, it's um. There are zipper injuries, mostly with
47:46
Speaker 1: boys and men. That was a group in two thousand
47:49
Speaker 1: thirteen and the urologists in San Francisco that's published an
47:53
Speaker 1: actual study about zipper injuries in between two thousand two
47:58
Speaker 1: in there were close to eighteen thousand men and boys
48:04
Speaker 1: who had had zipper accidents um at the emergency room
48:09
Speaker 1: with some variation of a something about mary type of injury. Yeah,
48:13
Speaker 1: that's that's not that's just the ones that were bad
48:16
Speaker 1: enough to go to the emergency room. Yeah, not the
48:18
Speaker 1: ones that are like, ah, let me just put some
48:21
Speaker 1: ointment on that, right, But that's exactly the treatment that
48:25
Speaker 1: those guys got at the at the emergency room. Apparently
48:28
Speaker 1: the treatment for it was described by a doctor, a
48:31
Speaker 1: pediatric doctor, who said, I'm just gonna read this whole thing. Okay, Yes,
48:36
Speaker 1: you want to just pour mineral oil all over the
48:39
Speaker 1: patient's genitalia and the zipper be generous, that's the key.
48:44
Speaker 1: This is pretty cheap stuff. Then let the patients sit
48:47
Speaker 1: there for twenty or thirty minutes, pack him in a
48:49
Speaker 1: room somewhere, and when you come back, the four skin
48:52
Speaker 1: will have simply slipped out of that zipper, although in
48:55
Speaker 1: some cases you may need a cotton swab to help
48:58
Speaker 1: it along a bit. You know, my favorite part of
49:01
Speaker 1: that whole quote, right, what it was when he's talking
49:04
Speaker 1: about how inexpensive mineral oil is. Right, because you know,
49:08
Speaker 1: mineral oil, you can just afford to just douse your
49:10
Speaker 1: testicles with that stuff because it's pretty cheap. This isn't
49:14
Speaker 1: like you know something, um Martin. Sure Kelly would invest
49:21
Speaker 1: in what god farmer bro. Yeah, he would never buy
49:27
Speaker 1: into a mineral oil company not profitable enough. I guarantee
49:31
Speaker 1: that he's trying to get rich off of coronavirus. I
49:34
Speaker 1: think he's in prison again. No, he's still He's probably
49:37
Speaker 1: got his minions. Um, yeah, probably so. Yeah, you can
49:41
Speaker 1: get your your junk zipped up in there. Uh, I
49:47
Speaker 1: had I don't understand why a man would go commando
49:52
Speaker 1: to me, the underwear is one of the biggest benefits
49:55
Speaker 1: is to avoid zipper related injuries. But people do it,
49:59
Speaker 1: and I just imagine you've got to be super careful. Yeah,
50:02
Speaker 1: not just men too. There were five women in that
50:05
Speaker 1: group of seventeen thousand, six hundred and sixteen emergency room visits.
50:09
Speaker 1: Five women got caught in there. But for young boys, Chuck,
50:14
Speaker 1: I thought this was the fact of the podcast. The
50:18
Speaker 1: number one cause of penile injury was not zippers. Zippers
50:21
Speaker 1: were second. Number one was getting smashed by the toilet lid.
50:27
Speaker 1: How for real? Yeah, I mean you know they're they're
50:33
Speaker 1: right there at lid height. I guess so I was
50:36
Speaker 1: forgetting about the height difference. Okay, that's sad. You got
50:41
Speaker 1: anything else, guys, I got nothing else? Well, that's zippers, everybody. Um,
50:47
Speaker 1: we made it through Zippers is the new Sun. And
50:50
Speaker 1: since I said zippers is the new Sun, it's time
50:53
Speaker 1: for a listener. Male. Ah, this is from Kirsten and
50:59
Speaker 1: we're gonna uh not exclusively, but I like reading these
51:03
Speaker 1: emails about how we're helping folks out during this weird,
51:07
Speaker 1: weird time of isolation, and this is this is one
51:10
Speaker 1: of those. Hey, guys, thanks so much for the podcast.
51:12
Speaker 1: My boyfriend Matt introduced me The Stuff You Should Know
51:15
Speaker 1: a while back, and it has been a godsend for
51:17
Speaker 1: our relationship. You see on car rides and road trips,
51:20
Speaker 1: he always wants to listen to something that he will
51:22
Speaker 1: learn from. I, on the other hand, am much more
51:26
Speaker 1: interested in listening to something funny and lighthearted. Your podcast
51:30
Speaker 1: strikes the perfect balance. Every time we listen to your show,
51:32
Speaker 1: we always laugh together and we both learn a little
51:35
Speaker 1: something too. Kirsten, we've been trying to explain that in
51:39
Speaker 1: such a sixtinct way for twelve years now. Yeah, that
51:41
Speaker 1: was really well done. Matt works in the I c
51:44
Speaker 1: U and has been working long hours amid the coronavirus pandemic.
51:48
Speaker 1: To pass the time alone at home, I've been listening
51:50
Speaker 1: to a lot of Stuff You Should know. So I
51:52
Speaker 1: want to thank you guys for keeping me company. And
51:53
Speaker 1: if you wanted to give a shout out to Matt
51:56
Speaker 1: and all of our amazing healthcare workers across the country,
51:59
Speaker 1: that would be awesome and we certainly certainly want to
52:02
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, give it up, like it's eight pm
52:06
Speaker 1: for all of the healthcare workers, including Matt. That's right.
52:09
Speaker 1: That is uh, you know, beyond everything that's going on
52:13
Speaker 1: with this there. It's not like everyone decided to take
52:16
Speaker 1: a break from getting hurt and needing to go to
52:18
Speaker 1: the emergency room. Have you been Have you been more
52:23
Speaker 1: careful than usual just to make sure you don't, like
52:26
Speaker 1: accidentally need to go. No, I can't think about that
52:29
Speaker 1: stuff because that's when I will get hurt. I thought
52:32
Speaker 1: about it climbing up a ladder my house, Well, I
52:35
Speaker 1: don't know if I'd be doing a ladder work right now.
52:37
Speaker 1: I had to we looked like there was a carpenter
52:40
Speaker 1: b that made its way through our upper window, and
52:43
Speaker 1: I had to look, well, I'm glad you were careful,
52:46
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's um. That kind of just hit me
52:49
Speaker 1: the other day that like, oh wait, there's still all
52:52
Speaker 1: the other hospital stuff that has to happen right now. Yeah,
52:55
Speaker 1: it's true. I have a friend who's a oh, our nurse.
52:59
Speaker 1: I believe even she was saying that she'd been basically
53:02
Speaker 1: furloughed for the moment because any elective surgery was um,
53:08
Speaker 1: you know, put on hold, which is understandable, but she
53:11
Speaker 1: was explaining that elective meant like your gall blighter needs
53:14
Speaker 1: to be removed, or you have a tumor that needs
53:16
Speaker 1: to be removed. It was considered elective at least temporarily.
53:20
Speaker 1: I think that she's back at work again. But that's
53:23
Speaker 1: how bad it was. It was just like, if it
53:25
Speaker 1: doesn't have to do with COVID, no, just say no. Yeah,
53:29
Speaker 1: I mean I was. I was just about to schedule
53:32
Speaker 1: an eye surgery and uh, I'm definitely gonna wait a
53:35
Speaker 1: while to do that. Yeah, yeah, I can imagine, I
53:39
Speaker 1: can imagine. Um. Well that was great. Who is that from?
53:43
Speaker 1: That was from Kirston and Matt. Yes, well, thanks a
53:47
Speaker 1: lot Kirston, and thanks a lot, Matt, and thanks a
53:49
Speaker 1: lot to everybody who's fighting the good fight on the
53:51
Speaker 1: front lines of the health care battle right now, looking
53:54
Speaker 1: out for all of us. Our hats are off to you.
53:57
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us like
53:59
Speaker 1: Kirston Matt did. We'll get in touch of this via email.
54:02
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