Spring is the time to check the tent and find the problems before you get out of doors and discover that your Zippers don’t Zip.

The camping season will be with us soon in a few months. Now is the time to bring the tent into the house, set it up in the living room, and see if everything is ready for camping out. Those of you who have larger tents may have to park the vehicles in the driveway until you have finished checking things over for your vacation or camping outing.

How To Fix A Tent Zipper

Zippers especially need to be checked out. This is the highest failure item, which is remarked on in a majority of the tent reviews we’ve looked at. Many people live with it as an unpleasant fact. Others go to the other extreme and toss the tent into the trash heap. However, this is a waste of cash and in most cases is avoidable.

In today’s article, we are going to show you a variety of ways that can repair your messed up zipper. In this way, you can go on using your tent, which up until now has been a source of fun as well as shelter for many camping outings.

So, let’s get down to it and fix that sticking, off track, and a tabless zipper that’s been giving you headaches and rendering your tent unusable.

The Slider And How To Replace It When It Won’t Work Right

This is where many of your problems occur. The symptoms are that you run the zipper up or down and the teeth do not mesh properly.

First, you need to examine the slider and see what’s what. Often times you will see that the spacing between the two edges is wider at one point and this causes things to go wonky on you.

The simple solution is to take a pair of needle-nose pliers and gently squeeze the edges closer together. This solves the issue nicely. If this doesn’t work, you will need to replace the slider entirely.

This is not as difficult as it might seem. It does, requires a bit of patience to gently pry the side that is attached to the female side of the zipper open with a small screwdriver. Near the base where the zipper starts use a seam ripper to open things up, gently pry the zipper stop open and pop in a new one.

Then when you have the new one in place, slide the zipper in engaging both sides at the same time, and slide it up and ensure teeth mesh nicely.

Use your pliers to put the stop back in place and with a needle and thread to sew things back up Bristol Fashion and you are done.

If things are sloppy, take a regular pair of pliers and gently squeeze the top and the bottom of the slider toward each other until snug. You can buy replacement zippers at most sporting goods stores. Amazon has a variety of zipper repair kits that have everything needed except pliers.

What else?

For sticking sliders, there are various products, which not only clean your zippers. This helps remove dirt and gunk that causes your zipper’s slider to jam or make it run off the track.

The items we’ve mentioned should be in a small kit that you toss into your tent bag that will make zipper cleaning and slider repair simple and easy to do. Because sooner or later, your Tent slider will run into problems of one kind or other like…

The Tab Breaks

This is a common problem with many of the low-end tents (and some of the High-End ones as well), which you see at Walmart and you order off the net.

The tab is either too small or made from low-quality metals that bend and break easily. In this case, a small screwdriver will let you pry open the retainer for the tab and you can substitute a new tab or a piece of cord in place of the metal tab.

You then can gently squeeze it shut again. The key point here is slow. These metals do not stand up to repeated flexing and will snap off if too much force is applied, in which case you will have to replace the zipper.

You can go with the techniques we mentioned earlier or there is a new gadget that makes things a whole lot easier. FIXnZIP lets you do all the work without resorting to sewing, prying, and pliers (SPP). It comes self-contained and goes on in minutes. So, this solves your tab problems and broken zippers all at the same time.

This may become the most important invention for camping since the invention of the mosquito net.

Final Words

Your tent’s zippers are its weak link. It’s not a question of if, but rather when you will lose one. By being proactive, you can have a repair kit ready or a few of the new replacement zipper products like FIXnZIP that can make everything right as rain once more. Then you can go on enjoying your outdoor activities. Be ready and use the simple tools and items and you’ll never have to worry about a failing tent zipper Slider or Broken tab again.