I’ve been researching this all morning and keep running into articles that explain why YKK is a great company and what is unique about their zippers, but no article that explains the technical design of the product.
Would love an explanation that goes beyond the very simple “YKK zippers actually lubricate themselves as you zip and unzip them.”
Thank you!
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Actually you won’t find the answer in this thread because no one knows.
YKK guards their manufacturing process very carefully.
> Founded by Tadao Yoshida in Tokyo in 1934, YKK stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha (which roughly translates as Yoshida Company Limited). The young Yoshida was a tinkerer who designed his own customized zipper machines when he wasn’t satisfied with existing production methods. One by one, Yoshida brought basically every stage of the zipper making process in house: A 1998 Los Angeles Times story reported that YKK “smelts its own brass, concocts its own polyester, spins and twists its own thread, weaves and color-dyes cloth for its zipper tapes, forges and molds its scooped zipper teeth …” and on and on. YKK even makes the boxes it ships its zippers in. And of course it still manufactures its own zipper-manufacturing machines—which it carefully hides from the eyes of competitors.
https://slate.com/business/2012/04/ykk-zippers-why-so-many-designers-use-them.html
How did YKK become a worldwide brand in such a short time?
> 1966 was a crucial year for the company, and it preceded many of their other worldwide expansions. In that year, the company invented the YZip – and extra durable high-quality zipper for jeans. And that same decade, jeans manufactured worldwide were designed to have zippers in the front. Plus, it was the sixties – men, women and children were wearing jeans, and people liked having the zippers on the front.
> After the YZip was such a huge hit, the invention of a YZip machine followed. This machine had the ability to include the YZip into the stitching process of jeans automatically, which further increased zipper sales, especially in the United States. Only after that did the YKK company start expanding to Canada and other countries all over the world.
https://expertworldtravel.com/ykk-zippers/
YKK History Manga episodes: https://www.ykk.com/english/ykk/manga/index.html
Actually you won’t find the answer in this thread because no one knows.
YKK guards their manufacturing process very carefully.
> Founded by Tadao Yoshida in Tokyo in 1934, YKK stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha (which roughly translates as Yoshida Company Limited). The young Yoshida was a tinkerer who designed his own customized zipper machines when he wasn’t satisfied with existing production methods. One by one, Yoshida brought basically every stage of the zipper making process in house: A 1998 Los Angeles Times story reported that YKK “smelts its own brass, concocts its own polyester, spins and twists its own thread, weaves and color-dyes cloth for its zipper tapes, forges and molds its scooped zipper teeth …” and on and on. YKK even makes the boxes it ships its zippers in. And of course it still manufactures its own zipper-manufacturing machines—which it carefully hides from the eyes of competitors.
https://slate.com/business/2012/04/ykk-zippers-why-so-many-designers-use-them.html
How did YKK become a worldwide brand in such a short time?
> 1966 was a crucial year for the company, and it preceded many of their other worldwide expansions. In that year, the company invented the YZip – and extra durable high-quality zipper for jeans. And that same decade, jeans manufactured worldwide were designed to have zippers in the front. Plus, it was the sixties – men, women and children were wearing jeans, and people liked having the zippers on the front.
> After the YZip was such a huge hit, the invention of a YZip machine followed. This machine had the ability to include the YZip into the stitching process of jeans automatically, which further increased zipper sales, especially in the United States. Only after that did the YKK company start expanding to Canada and other countries all over the world.
https://expertworldtravel.com/ykk-zippers/
YKK History Manga episodes: https://www.ykk.com/english/ykk/manga/index.html
Actually you won’t find the answer in this thread because no one knows.
YKK guards their manufacturing process very carefully.
> Founded by Tadao Yoshida in Tokyo in 1934, YKK stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha (which roughly translates as Yoshida Company Limited). The young Yoshida was a tinkerer who designed his own customized zipper machines when he wasn’t satisfied with existing production methods. One by one, Yoshida brought basically every stage of the zipper making process in house: A 1998 Los Angeles Times story reported that YKK “smelts its own brass, concocts its own polyester, spins and twists its own thread, weaves and color-dyes cloth for its zipper tapes, forges and molds its scooped zipper teeth …” and on and on. YKK even makes the boxes it ships its zippers in. And of course it still manufactures its own zipper-manufacturing machines—which it carefully hides from the eyes of competitors.
https://slate.com/business/2012/04/ykk-zippers-why-so-many-designers-use-them.html
How did YKK become a worldwide brand in such a short time?
> 1966 was a crucial year for the company, and it preceded many of their other worldwide expansions. In that year, the company invented the YZip – and extra durable high-quality zipper for jeans. And that same decade, jeans manufactured worldwide were designed to have zippers in the front. Plus, it was the sixties – men, women and children were wearing jeans, and people liked having the zippers on the front.
> After the YZip was such a huge hit, the invention of a YZip machine followed. This machine had the ability to include the YZip into the stitching process of jeans automatically, which further increased zipper sales, especially in the United States. Only after that did the YKK company start expanding to Canada and other countries all over the world.
https://expertworldtravel.com/ykk-zippers/
YKK History Manga episodes: https://www.ykk.com/english/ykk/manga/index.html
Brass itself is self lubricating and antibacterial.
That’s one reason it was used for so long (and still is) as door hardware.
Brass itself is self lubricating and antibacterial.
That’s one reason it was used for so long (and still is) as door hardware.
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