My lunch bag for work closes (or closed, actualy) with Velcro. One tab at the top of the back meets up with another tab sewn on the front of the bag.
Yesterday the tab on the front came off again, after about 5 tries of gluing it on with assorted products. It can’t be sewn on due to the construction of the bag. Finally I cut a buttonhole in the top tab and sewed a button on the front to keep the dumb bag closed. And my sneakers that supposedly close with Velcro, the Velcro is so gunked up with lint from my clothes the shoes won’t stay closed, and you can’t pick all the lint out of the Velcro.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see Velcro as an improvement over buttons or shoelaces. Who is with/against me on this?
I have a problem with my left arm and hand, which is gradually getting worse. Buttons are getting to be more difficult and so I tying shoes. I haven’t yet gone to Velcro fastenings but I can see it in my future.
My mother-in- law had Parkinson’s. She was not be able to button or tie at all, and so Velcro was good for her.
For healthy people? Probably no better than anything else, and that ripping sound can get annoying.
Hate it. It picks up lint and thread and hair and other stuff. Also, its sticky wears out. Hate its sound, too.
However, I have a fond memory of Velco from when I was a middle schooler in the 70s. The English teacher assigned us presentations on any writer, poet, whatever. It being the 70s, and I being a wanna-be hippie, I chose Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It seemed that, as I watched others’ presentations, that no one was really listening. So when I presented, I added a “little-known fact” at the very end that Ferlinghetti had been the inventor of Velcro. I guess the teacher was listening because it was on the test…
I have a fond memory of Velcro too. Pops brought home a piece from work in the mid-60s, when I was maybe 5 or 6, saying it was something new for fastening things. Anything Pops brought home from work back then seemed way cool, even a simple chunk of Velcro. I remember pressing the pieces together and ripping them apart over and over again. I don’t think we saw any more until it became popular on jackets over a decade later and then as fasteners for shoes even farther down the road.
You can remove much of the lint from the hook side of the Velcro by laying a toothpick or pin between the rows and pushing it between the layer of lint and the fabric base, then pulling up so the stuff is easier to get at with your fingers. Or a cheap comb might yield quicker results. I don’t think there’s any way to revive the fuzzy side once it starts to go and it seems the only way to keep Velcro joined to its host material is by sewing (if the host material is sewable.) Glues just don’t seem to do the job.
You do realize that your dad must have been working on cutting edge fastener/adhesive technology. It was a fascinating industry then, and is a fascinating industry today.
I have a friend who works on fastener/adhesive in Chile and he is involved in making those huge graphics that wrap around buses and still look right. So cool.
So yeah, your dad was on top of things in the 70s, and you were lucky kids to get to see it in development.
tapu, I’m honestly not sure how Pops got hold of that Velcro. I’m sure one of his work friends or boss gave it to him but where they got it, I don’t know. Pops was a machinist repairing parts for the paper industry at the time.
Another thing he brought home that had nothing to do with his business, though, were two bricks of the type of glass that they make windows of where a worker can be on one side and be manipulating nuclear materials on the other side without risk of radiation. I guess these bricks were samples. The one we kept throughout the years (Don’t know what happened to the other) was roughly the size of a standard building brick but it must have weighed three or four times more on account of all the lead impregnated in the glass. We had it up until last year when Pops passed away. I may have stashed it away (I hope so) but we had to clear out his apartment in a hurry and, being something of a hoarder, he had a mountain of stuff to go through. I hope I didn’t send it to the thrift store, because looking at it always reminded me of my childhood and what a good dad I had.
Velcro is pretty good in some applications and pretty lousy in others. For instance, I have a winter jacket with velcro around the cuffs; it works well because it’s easy to tighten up the cuffs without taking off my gloves. On the other hand, the same jacket has velcro patches to close up the front that come apart at the slightest tug, which is pretty useless for keeping a winter jacket closed.
So true! The best application I’ve found is cable ties. I buy a package of cable ties at the dollar store and use them to tie up the numerous extension cords, inside and outside, as well as Christmas lights and computer cables (seems like I have dozens of them!). Saves having a big snarled ball of cables to sort through when I need a particular one.
I’ve actually owned, and loved, Velcro-fastened shoes - I’m lazy, and the Velcro strips lasted long enough that the shoes wore out before the strips did.
On the other hand, uncontained hook strips (e.g. a jacket sleeve or purse closure inadequately fastened) can latch onto sweaters, damaging the fibers.
On the gripping hand, I’ve got some Velcro One-Wrap cord wraps which are fantastic - you loop them around the cord and they stay attached to the cord, and they’re right there then when you want to coil the cord up to put it away.
I do agree that sewing is required for virtually all uses, though I had a clock-radio that came with a small, easily-lost remote. I bought the self-adhesive disks and put one on the radio and the other side on the remote - since the only purpose was to keep it from being too-easily knocked off and lost, it did the job adequately.
From Wikipedia (Velcro - Wikipedia – I don’t know how to embed links, sorry!)
I first saw Velcro in the late 50’s or early 60’s. My father worked at General Dynamics (aerospace engineer) and brought home a few “pairs” for us kids to play with.
