zippers?
 

Why don't zippers set off the metal detector? Just curious-they are metal.

Good question, and directly related to it is metal button fly jeans. They also don't set the detector off. However, I had an occurrence at EWR where the tiny metal snap on my eyeglass case set off the sensor.

Metallic zippers are made from a zinc-aluminum-magnesium alloy which is non-ferrous and thus not magnetic.

Many, but not all, buttons are made of a similar alloy.

Dovster, who's your tailor and is he in Panama? ;) :D

The WTMD will allow some metal, it just depends on how sensitive it is. For instance, I've been able to enter a checkpoint with a cellphone in my pocket.

It is related to the density of the metal.


The metal is dense not the screeners (preemptive strike)

The part that irks me to no end is that the sensitivity of the equipment varies from airport to airport and magnometer to magnometer. All I want to do is find a travelling outfit that will not set off the !@#$# machines and make me go to secondary. At SFO last week the TSA agent made me unbutton my jeans and roll the waistband down because she "saw a woman who had something behind the zipper once." Yeah, like I believed her.

Come on now, I've already been wanded, poked and prodded--did she really need to see the flesh too? :mad:

Relative to each other?
 

:rolleyes:

I don't think that will happen. Before 9/11 you would have never know because the machines just weren't set that high. But you might have had different readings at each and every airport you went to.

I honestly feel that the machines can be set to the same level but the surroundings mess with them for some reason. This is my personal opinion on the matter.

The WTMD were calibrated by the manufacturer. Local TSA doesn't have control over changing the sensitivity.

"TSA agent made me unbutton my jeans and roll the waistband down because she "saw a woman who had something behind the zipper once." Yeah, like I believed her. "

That procedure is SOP

Well then there are quite a few TSA agents who need retraining, as in the 26 times I entered the airport and passed through security this year, and the 8 times I was sent to secondary (once on an SSSS), it was a first for me. Just more support for the AP "Report: Airport Screeners Perform Poorly" discussed in another thread.

:D :p ;) :)


Good one, TSAMGR. I truly laughed at that one.

With all due respect, that's bull. I travel to a lot of places with same-day round trips, which means I have exactly the same clothing on at 5pm that I did at 6am. ORD has the lowest settings of any US airport and always has. Last week I flew ORD-DFW, then DFW-AUS on the same day. At ORD, I passed right through, at DFW, the small clips on my suspenders set off the WTMD. It was suggested that I either take off the suspenders (which involves a whole lot of hassle) or see if pulling them off my shoulders might work. Um, I think I'll take my chances on getting a secondary.

And believe me, I try really hard to find the right clothes to travel in. Unlike the idiot I saw at AUS who set off all the bells and whistles with his cowboy boots ("there's no steel in these boots"), I just beg a little consistency. BTW, that AUS idiot's boots had something like 45 nails and a shank in each boot -- the screener counted them on the scanner -- that was a pretty good laugh while I put my no-metal tennis shoes back on...

TSAMGR pretty much said the same thing I said. It's not bull, the company did set it to a TSA standard and we have no power to change them.

Maybe you should ask the company why the machines are so inconsistence.

I was on duty when they installed our new wtmds and they were installed and tested by the same guys. Now we have 2 satellites but the difference is on the north one the wtmd is sitting on linoleum and the south one is sitting on carpet and I've noticed that the north one is more sensitive than the south one, maybe because of the carpet. So Screenx's comment about the surroundings messing with them is probably accurate.