National Clothesline

Don’t you just hate it when garment tags fall off? Let’s have a chat about this today!

We have all seen it… the shirt or some other garment without a tag. I think that I will surprise you when I explain the most probable culprit. And it will be much easier to correct than you think. And the solution will even save you money!

There are four ways to attach garment marks and they all have issues:

Heat seal: This is not as foolproof as you think. I have been to barcode plants where there are several (or many) garments without tags and they do the same things that you do… at the end of the day, someone tries to match up everything and hope that they’re right. There is no magic wand that fixes any issue. Except proper management.

Pins: Although I don’t recommend using safety pins across the board, this method is probably the most secure way to attach garment tags to drycleaning pieces. It is not practical for shirts, however.

Dennison fasteners: My disdain for these things is

probably fueled more by a personal fear rather than anything related to a true disadvantage. I am always certain that the needle will wind up completely through my left palm! Still, they are a major issue when it comes to lost tags.

Staples: There are distinct pluses and minuses connected to staples and I’m eager to share them with you.

Safety pins can be useful, especially for attaching tags to delicate items, but because this column leans towards the shirt side of the industry, we will give pins merely an honorable mention.

I don’t know of too many drycleaners who use pins to attach tags to shirts, and when they do, it is usually a drycleaning tag attached to the tail of a shirt. This is what my father did 30 years ago. It is not a good idea, mostly because the pinhead gets crushed by the press and becomes a challenge to remove. Pins have their place in the typical drycleaning shop, but they are easy to beat in the shirt laundry environment.

Dennison fasteners are a major cause of lost tags, mostly because they are not used correctly. If you prick the tag once and then push the needle into the fabric and the result is a garment tag, flapping in the wind, dangling from the garment, the chances are great that this tag will not be there after the piece is cleaned.

Many feel like the answer to lost tags is to double up on the fasteners — put two Dennison fasteners.

Tags do not get lost because the fastener/pin/staple gets sick of doing its job and decides to ruin your day by calling it quits. Tags fall off because they are not securely attached and therefore flap around and get caught on something else like a net bag or another garment. Doubling up on the fasteners only weakens the paper!

In Photo 1, please note a couple of important points that make this tag very secure. First the dennison fastener is “weaved in” and second, the paper is folded over. The double-strength tag happens to be one of the features of Tailwind tags, but aside from that, it is very securely attached. Adding a second fastener will not help make the tag more secure.

Scientifically speaking, the more holes that you punch into paper, the weaker that paper will be. This isn’t hard to understand, but I disagree that a tag with four pinholes is measurably weaker than one with two holes. Science surely could prove me wrong, but for our practical purposes adding two fasteners or two or more staples is a waste. It probably doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t help.

One thing worth noting is that the plastic stub on the Dennisons is annoying. In the photo, it hides the lot number. In the Tailwind System, the lot number is not significant for assembly or other plant operations, so it doesn’t matter if that number is covered, but in any other application, that plastic knob is annoying and must be moved aside by the person reading the tag. The same is true for the head of a pin, by the way.

Let’s talk about staples. This happens to be my favorite fastening method because — when done right — it is fast, secure and does not deface or damage the garment in any way. That’s important. And if you re-tag, it greatly speeds that process.

First of all, the stapler. In spite of the fact that there are a variety of styles available, there is only one that works properly.

Look at Photo 2. This is what a staple look like when it is ejected from a Bostich B8 stapler into your hand. It might scare you at first, because the points of the staple appear as though they would do damage.

No worries. When the staple is driven through paper, the staple is bent onto itself as shown and the point of the staple is pressed into the paper – guarding it from doing damage – but never through the paper.

Periodically test your staplers and see if they fold a staple like this. As the pivot pins wear out or slide out of position, the stapler will be out of line and will not do this. This doesn’t mean that the stapler is garbage, it just means that the stapler can’t be used for tagging. Promote the stapler to the bagger or the folded shirt area or even your office. Rotate all the staplers into the tagging area first.

Now look at Photo 3. It shows two things. The three staples, as I mentioned earlier, don’t do any good, but notice, also, that the paper isn’t perfectly folded. If tags are folded carelessly like this, you risk the chance that the staple doesn’t get a good bite on the back of the paper or even misses it entirely. Tags are dangerously close to being insecure when this happens.

It is most important to understand that tags do not come off because the staple unbent itself and decided to remove itself from the tag. Tags come off for one of two reasons: The tag was securely attached to a label that was NOT securely attached to the garment or the tag/staple/fastener got caught on something else like another garment, net bag or a machine part. This will pull the tag out easily by tearing it.

Look at Photo 4 and you will easily see where all the stress is on the tag as it gets pulled.

So the secret is to not let anything snag on the tag. If you have a weak stapler (or the wrong kind) that folds a staple incorrectly, it will leave a sharp point that will readily get caught on something and the tag doesn’t stand a chance.

If you have a weak stapler (or the wrong kind) that folds a staple incorrectly, and you add a second staple, then you exactly double the chance that a staple point will get caught on something.

Upgrade to Bostitch B8 staplers and, if you already use them, make certain that they still expel a staple that looks like the one in Photo 1. You will be assured that your tags are secure. Just make sure that the tags aren’t attached to a weak label and you should come close to eliminating any lost tags!

“If you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got.”