Zipper Fly Construction- Underlayer Seam always shows

[jruley]

Bifurcator - have you tried Roberto Cabrera's method from his book?  He shows a simple step by step procedure which has always worked well for me.

Are you running the zipper further down into the "J" than really necessary?  If you keep it straighter it might be easier to overlap.

The key to Cabrera's method is basting.  Mark your overlap, baste the left side onto it and let the zipper find its place.

Hope this is helpful.

Your fellow amateur,
Jim

[Hendrick]

Bifurcator - have you tried Roberto Cabrera's method from his book?  He shows a simple step by step procedure which has always worked well for me.

Are you running the zipper further down into the "J" than really necessary?  If you keep it straighter it might be easier to overlap.

The key to Cabrera's method is basting.  Mark your overlap, baste the left side onto it and let the zipper find its place.

I have never sewn a zipper into a curve (except in a pencil skirt). I suppose I'm to lazy for that! But I have made "deep" fly constructions with buttons. I especially like the WWII baggy chino's worn in the pacific. I believe these were called "south sea bubbles" or someting like that by GI's. The fly's were 2 inches wide on these and the pockets were deep enough to scratch your knees without taking your hands out!


Cheerio, Hendrick
Hope this is helpful.

Your fellow amateur,
Jim

[Bifurcator]

Hi All,
Sorry for the delay here.  Thank you for everyone's help and advise.
I had to move on and get back into making full pants.  I can get a good overlap now and I've straightened the front crotch curve a little where the zipper needs to sew into it, but it still does have a decent amount of curve.  I can get it to look neat but still have some tweaking to do.  Maybe I will take some more pics or a video when I sew my next one to share.  Marking the overlap edge and basting has definitely helped a lot.

@jruley  I will check out Cabrera's method and maybe do a mock up following his steps.  My construction is pretty unique to my design with everything being clean finished, which is also creating some of my struggles.  And by amateur i'm sure you mean as someone who does it for the love of it

@hendrick  Yes, that deep fly is the look I'm trying to emulate, but using a zipper.  I also love those old chinos and that's my inspiration.  Just love how comfortable and sturdy they are.  To your point though they were all buttonflys, which allowed them to go pretty far down with the fly.  Never heard the term "south sea bubbles", pretty interesting/funny.

[jruley]

This is one of my latest trouser zippers, done using the Cabrera method:





Both sides of the pattern are cut the same.  All the overlap is done by basting. 

But my zipper doesn't run very deep into the curve, so maybe that is the problem.

(P. S. - putting a tailor's ham under the fly allows the area to curve more naturally for photos.)

[TTailor]

I cut my trousers with the same seam allowance on both CF's.
I usually leave 1.5 cm and when installing the zipper I align the edge of the zipper tape to the raw edge which offsets it adequately.
The left front I trim down after sewing on the facing.

I think that you do have to limit how far into the curve you can place the zip, as the zipper is less flexible and doesn't adapt to the curve very well.
Have to get some of those elusive curved zips if you want to do that!😉

[Greger]

Some use the iron to shape a curve into the zipper tape.
Hostek has a method in his book. Clarence Poulin has his method. How to make Men's Clothes has another method.
And the problem might be a fitting problem, because of too much stress, trying to push the seam open.