Metal zipper two way have come a long way since the early bone or horn pins and bone splinters. Many
devices were designed later that were more efficient; such fasteners included
buckles, laces, safety pins, and buttons. Buttons with buttonholes, while still
an important practical method of closure even today, had their difficulties. The shiny sliver zipper was first conceived to replace the irritating nineteenth century
practice of having to button up to forty tiny buttons on each shoe of the time.
In
1851, Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine, developed what he called
an automatic continuous clothing closure. It consisted of a series of clasps
united by a connecting cord running or sliding upon ribs. Despite the potential
of this ingenious breakthrough, the invention was never marketed.
Another
inventor, Whitcomb L. Judson, came up with the idea of a slide fastener, which
he patented in 1893. Judson's mechanism was an arrangement of hooks and eyes
with a slide clasp that would connect them. After Judson displayed the new
clasp lockers at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, he obtained
financial backing from Lewis Walker, and together they founded the Universal
Fastener Company in 1894.
The
first zippers were not much of an improvement over simpler buttons, and
innovations came slowly over the next decade. Judson invented a zipper that
would part completely (like the zippers found on today's jackets), and he
discovered it was better to clamp the teeth directly onto a cloth tape that
could be sewn into a garment, rather than have the teeth themselves sewn into
the garment.
Heavy duty zippers
were still subject to popping open and sticking as late as 1906, when Otto
Frederick Gideon Sundback joined Judson's company, then called the Automatic
Hook and Eye Company. His patent for Plako in 1913 is considered to be the
beginning of the modern zipper. His "Hookless Number One," a device
in which jaws clamped down on beads, was quickly replaced by "Hookless
Number Two", which was very similar to modern zippers. Nested, cup-shaped
teeth formed the best zipper to date, and a machine that could stamp out the
metal in one process made marketing the new fastener feasible.
The
first zippers were introduced for use in World War I as fasteners for soldiers'
money belts, flying suits, and life-vests. Because of war shortages, Sundback
developed a new machine that used only about 40 percent of the metal required
by older machines.
Zippers
for the general public were not produced until the 1920s, when B. F. Goodrich
requested some for use in its company galoshes. It was Goodrich's president,
Bertram G. Work, who came up with the word zipper, but he wanted it to refer to
the boots themselves, and not the device that fastened them, which he felt was
more properly called a slide fastener.
The
next change zippers underwent was also precipitated by a war—World War II.
Zipper factories in Germany had been destroyed, and metal was scarce. A West
German company, Opti-Werk GmbH, began research into new plastics, and this
research resulted in numerous patents. J. R. Ruhrman and his associates were
granted a German patent for developing a plastic ladder chain. Alden W. Hanson,
in 1940, devised a method.
A
stringer consists of the tape (or cloth) and teeth that make up one side of the
zipper. One method of making the stringer entails passing a flattened strip of
wire between a heading punch and a pocket punch to form scoops. A blanking
punch cuts around the scoops to form a Y shape. The legs of the Y are then
clamped around the cloth tape that allowed a plastic coil to be sewn into the
zipper's cloth. This was followed by a notched plastic wire, developed
independently by A. Gerbach and the firm William Prym-Wencie, that could
actually be woven into the cloth.
After
a slow start, it was not long before zipper sales soared. In 1917, 24,000
zippers were sold; in 1934, the number had risen to 60 million. Today zippers
are easily produced and sold in the billions, for everything from blue jeans to
sleeping bags.
If
you want to know more about metal zipper and zipper puller, please contact with
UZIP ZIPPER.
Jessica
Kung
Skype:
tdysho
Wechat:
jessicakung1017
Whats:
8613631458295
Email:
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