Sunday, August 18, 2013

How to Swap Zipper Pulls Tutorial

Zipper Shot

Tutorial: How to Swap Zipper Pulls

Alright - start with the BOTTOM of your zipper pull.  
(To me the bottom is the end where your pull stops when the zipper is pulled completely open.)
You will see a little metal tab keeping the two sides closed (below).  
Zipper End
Flip it over and you will see that the tab is attached to the zipper with little metal teeth (below).
Back of zipper end, notice the "metal tab teeth"
Using something sharp like a knife or scissor pry open the teeth and carefully take out the metal tab.
Please try not to cut yourself.
Bottom of zip without metal tab
Now your zipper bottom should look like the above photo with no metal tab and the ends of the zipper sides are still plentiful allowing you to 1) take off the original zipper pull and then 2) easily thread on the new zipper pull.
Attach zip pull to end without metal tab
This is actually a purple zipper with a new pink pull being threaded on...next time I swap pulls I'll replace the photos with more obvious color changes!

IMPORTANT TIP: Your Zippers Styles must be the same for this to work.  (Trust me, I learned this the hard way!)  An easy way to match up your zipper styles is to check the back of the tabs.  In the photo below you can see that the yellow and purple tabs are the same style, the pink is different!
Zipper styles must be the same!  Check zipper pulls.

See?  Easy peasy...
Let me know if you have questions!

- rebecca lynne

3 comments:

Catherine said...

Fabulous, will have will have to give that a try

AmandaK@whatthebobbin said...

Neat, I'll have to try that out.

Archie The Wonder Dog said...

I love the way that looks!