One of the winners of the last year’s Pop Sci Inventor awards was Leonard Duffy’s “Slidingly Engaging Fastener”. Although Duffy has succeeded in developing a great alternative for Velcro, his original intent was to develop an improvement to the zipper after a bag he was carrying wouldn’t close. The fastener works through a matrix of injection molded “islands” resembling clubs from a deck of cards that lock into one another. Duffy previously won a NASA inventor’s award for a wrap around cast using the fastener that he developed for his sister-in-law when she injured her wrist.
The inventor claims it supports eight times the weight of Velcro, doesn’t lose it’s stickiness and best of all is silent. Unfortunately, no one has picked it up for development yet but it looks like it has potential in the tactical nylon industry.
