3D-printed zip on a bag

    Yesterday I was in a shop and wanted to put my wallet back in my bag, but unfortunately I ended up holding the zip pull of the bag in my hand.
Funnily enough, the zip was actually closed, which meant I couldn’t even get to the contents. (So my keys, mobile and wallet were all locked inside together.) So I had to unpick the zip and went home. Back home, I realised I couldn’t get the slider back onto the zip. Apparently, a tiny piece had snapped off, which meant the bag was now broken – the zip was unusable because of a tiny plate – and I would have had to start looking for a new bag again, even though this one was still quite new and otherwise in practically perfect condition.

So I searched online for a zip slider and, lo and behold, you can buy them. However, they come in many different types and sizes, and in the end I would have had to wait a long time to get one.

But as I needed something quickly, I fired up my 3D printer and printed a zip. Unfortunately, the size wasn’t quite right, but in principle it seemed very close to the original part, so I simply scaled it up a little and voilà: a zip.

After a few (frustrating) attempts to pull the zip open, it finally worked, and now I’ve got a 3D-printed zip slider on my bag. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but it seems to work well and is sturdy enough for normal use.

Even I didn’t expect that. ;)