I have a favorite soft pencil case made from faux leather that I’ve been using for more than 20 years, but the zipper had gotten finicky and started to not close. It started having a problem zipping closed on just one side, but today it wouldn’t close at all and the slide was just moving back and forth without closing anything at all.
After a quick search, I found a video by UCAN Zipper USA with a solution that fixed it immediately. The narrator said the problem was the zipper started to “open a little bit” with repeated use. I suspect the slider on my pencil case opened a little by vigorous use or sometimes by accidentally zipping it over something that had been caught in the zipper teeth.
The solution was quite simple:
- Inspect the closing side of the zipper to see whether one side is more “open” or riding higher than the other.
- Using pliers, gently clamp that side down just a little, then try to open/close the zipper. If it doesn’t quite engage yet, clamp down a little more.
That’s it! It worked like a charm for me. While this worked for a coiled zipper, I suspect it would also work for a molded tooth zipper as well.