Talon Zipper Pull for Eastman B3

[Isisllc]

Well, the 2003 Eastman House B3 that I own was not zipping well... One time; no problem. Next time; no zippy. The pull that came with the jacket self-destructed not long after I bought it in 2003 (Biggen Hill Airshow), but luckily, I had a non-salvageable D1 that I was able to rob for a pull. That worked well until a couple of years ago when the zipping became a casino game.

This evening I attempted to 'compress' the male side of the pull thinking that would help. Afterwards the jacket refused to zip at all. I've attempted spreading the pull, etc, etc, to no avail. Does anybody have a source for zippers/pulls that would fit a B3? I'm not picky; they can either be NOS, salvaged, or repro. Just looking for something that fits and can arrive soon as it's starting to get cold.

Thanks,

Rob

 

[Steve27752]

Have you contacted ELC? They may be able to help.

 

[s4rmark]

I think they're closed until January 9th. If you do contact them, phone them as they can be quite slow with email response.

 

[Isisllc]

I'd like to find a source in the states, if possible. While I picked up the jacket while working in the UK, both jacket and me are stateside. I was able to make some progress with the pull this morning, but it still isn't ready for primetime.

 

[Silver Surfer]

i have a coupla rmj-rmnz talon [look and function like the real deal] pullers. in the us? pay for mailing is all i want. name, address?

 

[Grant]

For what it's worth, the male side of the Kwik zip on my ELC HLB malfunctioned, so returned it to Devon. Gary and the crew did a first rate job replacing the zip matching the stitch holes exactly!

 

[Isisllc]

I should have checked in and read these responses earlier! I went ahead and ordered two zippers and a small bag of the top stops from mash.jp. I'm not sure how long they'll take to arrive, but I'll let everyone know how installing the new pull goes.

 

[Isisllc]

I've finally found time to finish this thread. The mash.jp zippers arrived quickly, less than two weeks after ordered, but because I wasn't home when the postman attempted delivery, the package went back to the post office where it lay for more than a week until I could find time to go fetch it.

This first photo is of the package in which the zippers were packed.

This is the zipper itself. The pull came with a leather grasp installed and you can also see that the zipper came with stops installed at the top. The stop on the left (female side) is the A stop and the one on the right (male side) is the C stop. Mash's website has a great deal of information on zippers, zipper installation and modification of zippers to fit a specific application.

The tools necessary for this project are a pair of nippers and a pair of needlenose pliers. The nippers are used to cut away the legs on the existing A stop so that it can be removed (on both the donor zipper and the jacket) and the needlenose to compress the legs on the new stop once the pull is installed. I was able to practice removing the stop on the donor zipper which gave me the needed confidence to tackle the stop on my jacket.

So you'd think that after you've removed the stop on the donor, separated the zipper pull from the donor and then removed the stop from the jacket that you're all done. Not quite... It turns out that installing the pull on the jacket wasn't quite intuitive. Luckily, I was able to examine the second zipper that I bought and that helped me with the installation of the pull on my jacket. The bottom of the pull just grips the teeth of the zipper and very little of the zipper tape, whereas the top of the pull grips both the teeth and the tape. Initially, I attempted to 'back' the pull onto the zipper only to be frustrated by the fact that the bottom opening was too small to accept the tape. The solution was to start the front of the pull onto the tape above the top tooth (pushing up) and when that was done, slide the zip down over the teeth.

Last task, installing the stop at the top of the zipper. You'd think that you would use the needlenose to grip the top of the stop and once it's placed on the tape to crimp down. However, the body of the stop offers enough resistance to crimping that the right way to do this is to turn the pliers 90 degrees (12 o'clock) from the stop (3 o'clock), place on the tape, and then crimp. All done. The zipper works perfectly now and I'm ready for cold weather (60 degrees F here today).

So what's a 12 year old Eastman house B-3 look like? The jacket, which was stiff as a board when new and smelled like a night in a sheep barn, is now soft and flexible, no longer smells of lanolin, and has picked up a lovely patina. There is wear to the cuffs and the hem, but that wear appeared almost immediately and has gotten no worse. While the fleece was honey colored when new, it's now faded to a blonde color.

This back view shows the sleeves and the wear to the horsehide elbow panels.

These closeups of the sleeves better demonstrate the 'salty' look of the sleeves.

This last picture shows the wear to the cuffs. I was going to attach a picture of the wear to the hem (from my wallet), but I'm limited to 10 photos.

This is my first attempt at uploading photos in a post to this site, so I hope that it works well.

Rob

 

[Smithy]

Looks great and well done with the repair.

I might be in the minority but I actually like it when the sheepskin jackets have some bald patches on the cuffs and hem.