My zipper is hard to work.

September 14, 2024 5:18 PM

Can you help me lubricate a difficult zipper?

I have this suitcase, and I 99.999% love it. It's super durable, the wheels are basically bulletproof, it holds a lot, and it's mostly amazing.

The one annoyance I have with it, though, is that zipper right there on the front. The rest of the zippers on the bag are durable plastic that have never given me a minute's problem at all, but that front zipper is metal, and it's a NIGHTMARE. it doesn't snag or break, but it is super stiff and incredibly hard to open and close, particularly in airport situations when that operation needs to happen quickly.

Is there a good way to lubricate or otherwise loosen a recalcitrant metal zipper? Ideally permanently, but I'd also be fine with something that I need to reapply every now and again. I'm not thrilled with the idea of spraying WD40 on it, from an odor and potential stain perspective, but I'm open to pretty much anything that would work, and if that's the best option I'd do that.

posted by pdb to Travel & Transportation (9 answers total)

I would start by carefully inspecting the slider carriage; often they are a bit too tight or have a slight warp or twist in them, and that is the real problem, not lube. You can tweak these a bit with careful use of a needle nose pliers.

Next I'd apply beeswax, then gently work the zipper back and forth and inspect it more.

(WD-40 is not a suitable durable lubricant for any application. It's a solvent and "penetrating oil", best used for cleaning or part of a multi-stage process)
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:25 PM on September 14 [2 favorites]

My trusted shoe repair person told me to use candle wax on a stubborn heavy duty metal zipper on my riding boots. I imagine beeswax would work well, too.
posted by Dolley at 5:27 PM on September 14 [1 favorite]

Scribble up and down the metal zipper with pencil, then zip and unzip over it to get the graphite dust down in the teeth.
posted by phunniemee at 5:40 PM on September 14 [7 favorites]

I've had really good luck using a non-liquid silicone spray on sticky zippers... I just don't recommend using it on jean flys or anything that might just un-zip itself, because it can work a little too well. (It works crazy good on locks, too.
posted by stormyteal at 6:34 PM on September 14

I was always told to lube a difficult zipper with a bar of soap
posted by atomicstone at 6:49 PM on September 14 [5 favorites]

Local ancient cobbler used wax on my sticky boots
posted by platypus of the universe at 7:23 PM on September 14

Pencil has worked really well for me on zippers
posted by sepviva at 7:38 PM on September 14

Graphite works really well for lubricating zippers.

Rubbing a pencil on the teeth works, as mentioned above; you can also buy a tube of graphite dust at a hardware store and squirt it onto the zipper.
posted by mekily at 11:33 PM on September 14

I'd try wax or soap before graphite. Graphite is a better lubricant, but it will tranfer visible marks to anything the zipper rubs on.

A cake of soap is easier than wax because you can wet it to make a softened layer on the outside before scraping it along the zipper teeth. If you do that down each side of an opened zipper then little crumbs of wet soap will lodge between the teeth, and when you close the zipper again they'll get thoroughly squished in and then dry out and stay put. Wax tends to get sawn up and make a lot of loose crumbs before enough of it sticks in place to do much good.

If you have any on hand, Tri-Flow dry bicycle chain lubricant is the absolute best zipper lube I know of. It's just a hard wax in a solvent that evaporates quickly, leaving behind a coating of the wax on everything it's touched. Applying a few drops of that to the zipper's slider while running it up and down the teeth will give you a long-lasting, non-messy result. Prohibitively expensive to buy just for this one job, though.

Tri-Flow also makes a non-drying lubricant consisting of a lightweight oil with teflon powder suspended in it. It's a great lube, but I wouldn't use it on a zipper because like anything oil-based it would probably end up causing stains.
posted by flabdablet at 5:13 AM on September 15 [3 favorites]