Press Studs

The press stud or snap fastener or popper on your organiser performs a very vital function in keeping the organiser closed. There are alternatives such as zipper closures or elastic, but the humble snap fastener is the one that seems to have the dominate position for ring bound organisers. 

The snap fastener has been around since the late 1800's, before the ring mechanism came along.  

It comes in two parts, each part is made up of two halves that are riveted together. 

We consider there to be a male and female part to the press stud. The female part has a small spring inside it which 'grips' the male part when pressed together. 

Which part goes on the strap and which part goes on the cover seems to vary, even any looking at the same brand. Filofax doesn't seem settled on which part should go on the strap, on some it is the female part on others it is the male part. 

Starting with two Filofax single popper fastenings, the first is a Holborn, that has the male part on the strap and the female part on the cover. 

And this is a Malden in the opposite configuration. 

It is less critical with single press stud compared to multiple ones. Although to my way of thinking putting the female part on to the strap is better because if the spring fails it is easier to change it on the strap compared to changing it if was on the cover. 

Some organisers have 'multiple popper' options to allow for adjusting the length for the strap depending on how full your organiser is.

This is a Launer organiser from the 1980's more details here. The female parts are located on the cover and quite widely spaced apart. 

On the 'longest' option for the strap the other popper does show. 

On the shortest it is covered over by the strap. 

A Filofax Belmont, again two poppers but much closer together. Notice the slight dimple on the strap next to the popper from being pressed against the second popper on the cover. 

On the long fastening, the strap still covers the other popper.

As well as on the shorter fastening. 

With the majority of organisers you get what they have made for you, there is no choice about how many poppers there are and where they are located. Unless you buy a Van der Spek Custom, then you can choose not only the length of the strap, but also how many popper there are if you add an extra 12mm or more. 

On my Dark Brown and Yellow A5 organiser, I asked for a slightly longer strap with double poppers. 

On reflection though I think I should have requested it to be male on the cover with the females on the strap not as it is now. 

With the two male fasteners on the strap, it results in a slight 'dimple' in the cover of the leather. Not a big deal just noticeable under the bright studio lights used in these photographs. Although, I suspect the same might happen if it had been the opposite way around as the leather is so soft. 

On organisers that have the cap of the press stud exposed on the outside strap, like early Filofax Winchesters, the cap can often suffer damage from constant use. Early ones only had a plastic cap which often cracks and falls off. 

Alan Marshall perfected a great repair for these which you can read about here. 

Poppers, Press Studs, Snap Fasteners, simple things I know, but quite essential for every day use of your organiser.

The Philofaxy Guide to Press Studs

The press stud or snap fastener or popper on your organiser performs a very vital function in keeping the organiser closed. There are alternatives such as zipper closures or elastic, but the humble snap fastener is the one that seems to have the dominate position for ring bound organisers. 

The snap fastener has been around since the late 1800's, before the ring mechanism came along.  

It comes in two parts, each part is made up of two halves that are riveted together. 

We consider there to be a male and female part to the press stud. The female part has a small spring inside it which 'grips' the male part when pressed together. 

Which part goes on the strap and which part goes on the cover seems to vary, even any looking at the same brand. Filofax doesn't seem settled on which part should go on the strap, on some it is the female part on others it is the male part. 

Starting with two Filofax single popper fastenings, the first is a Holborn, that has the male part on the strap and the female part on the cover. 

And this is a Malden in the opposite configuration. 

It is less critical with single press stud compared to multiple ones. Although to my way of thinking putting the female part on to the strap is better because if the spring fails it is easier to change it on the strap compared to changing it if was on the cover. 

Some organisers have 'multiple popper' options to allow for adjusting the length for the strap depending on how full your organiser is.

This is a Launer organiser from the 1980's more details here. The female parts are located on the cover and quite widely spaced apart. 

On the 'longest' option for the strap the other popper does show. 

On the shortest it is covered over by the strap. 

A Filofax Belmont, again two poppers but much closer together. Notice the slight dimple on the strap next to the popper from being pressed against the second popper on the cover. 

On the long fastening, the strap still covers the other popper.

As well as on the shorter fastening. 

With the majority of organisers you get what they have made for you, there is no choice about how many poppers there are and where they are located. Unless you buy a Van der Spek Custom, then you can choose not only the length of the strap, but also how many popper there are if you add an extra 12mm or more. 

On my Dark Brown and Yellow A5 organiser, I asked for a slightly longer strap with double poppers. 

On reflection though I think I should have requested it to be male on the cover with the females on the strap not as it is now. 

With the two male fasteners on the strap, it results in a slight 'dimple' in the cover of the leather. Not a big deal just noticeable under the bright studio lights used in these photographs. Although, I suspect the same might happen if it had been the opposite way around as the leather is so soft. 

On organisers that have the cap of the press stud exposed on the outside strap, like early Filofax Winchesters, the cap can often suffer damage from constant use. Early ones only had a plastic cap which often cracks and falls off. 

Alan Marshall perfected a great repair for these which you can read about here. 

Poppers, Press Studs, Snap Fasteners, simple things I know, but quite essential for every day use of your organiser.

Guest Post - A Good, But Not Perfect, Fix for Missing Poppers - Alan

For those of you that like buying some of the older Filofax organisers off Ebay and other sales sites the occasional 'missing popper' will be familiar to you all. 

Thank you to Alan for this excellent guide on how to fix them. 

I have posted about this before in various of the Facebook groups, but Facebook is not a great platform for archiving articles that could be a useful reference some time down the road.  So at the risk of being repetitive, here is how I deal with missing popper caps.

While taking pictures for another guest post about my collection of Deskfax Filofax, I noticed that the popper cap was missing from the Deskfax that stays open on my desk.

Naturally, I decided to fix it. My “fix” – or “Filofix”, as KentfromOz would say – is to use the head off of a brass fastener. These are getting harder to find these days, and I had to special order them. Since I only expected to use the caps, I ordered the smallest length, one inch, as the price goes up dramatically with longer pins.

The heads come off the fasteners fairly easily. I find that spreading the two pins, as shown below, and then pinching together near the head allows the brass head to slip off easily.

These heads are the perfect size to fit over the remaining part of the popper hardware, provided that it hasn’t become too damaged.  In my experience, most of the time they stay on well, but occasionally, I have had the odd popper head slip off. I imagine that a dab from a hot glue gun would make the fix more permanent, but I have never done this, as it is my intention to try painting the brass heads in their correct colour.

Here is a picture of some of my vintage personal size Filofaxes that I have fixed.

Earlier, I mentioned that I had bought the shortest size of these brass fasteners.  One day, I wanted to use a couple of personal Filofax that I had been using for an earlier course, and instead of finding an unused binder for the old contents, I pulled out the brass fasteners.

As you can see from the picture, the one inch fastener barely makes it through the thickness of the contents of a personal. A longer fastener would have been more useful!

Thank you Alan. 

Press Stud Repair

Older Filofax personal organisers have plastic cover on the press stud on the clasp.  Early Finsbury organisers had one, here's my A5 from about 2005:

Later ones like this Pocket had a leather cover over the press stud.

My elderly Winchester suffered from the plastic cover on the press stud cracking and eventually being lost completely.

Fortunately it left behind a metal dome, but I've seen ones where that too has been lost! I lived with mine like that for a while. But decided to smarten it up a bit.

So I already had some exterior grade black paint for use on metal work.  I cleaned up the button with a little burnish and degreased it with a cloth and some white spirit. Then when it was all dry I dipped a cotton bud in to the paint and just let a small drop of paint flow over the button.  Then I left it to dry in our warm office for a couple of days and here's the result.

Since the photo was taken I've given the leather a bit of leather care treatment and my dear olde Winchester looks as good as new again!

If you have lost the metal cap as well, then you have a couple of alternatives. You can either get a small piece of leather and stitch it over the exposed button. Or get the press stud replaced, this is best done by a shoe repair shop, you can buy the press studs from most craft shops or haberdashery shops. Or use a small bit of epoxy glue/putty to form a new cap and then paint this once the glue/putty has hardened.