Canvas and water

Mike,

I cant give you a 'text book' answer, however from experience with our canvas tent I have found that we do indeed need to ocassionally retreat the canvas after long periods of not having been used. I usually find the best indicator to be drips of water lqanding on my head whilst trying to sleep in a rain storm. I have since treated the joins with a silicon based canvas treatment to avoid said situations occuring.
cheers,

Mike

the age-old tradition of expanding things by watering before use, does indeed raise the question - when the swag/tent dries out, do the holes re-appear.
i solved this problem by installing a humidfier in the shed so all my camping gear is kept in tip-top condition.
if the humidifier proves to costly, there is always the old trick of painting the seams with a good brand of coke/pepsi type drink.
it is preferable to use a sugarless one to prevent attracting ants.
i used pepsi max on my last swag with great results.
it does tend to stain the canvas slightly but otherwise works great.

Nice time mike, I was thinking of this the other day and was looking at getting my tent out and give it a bath ...... so to speak. Mind you proberly get arrested in Brisbane at the moment if I tried it. lol.

Brian

OK Mike,

For WIW here is my understanding, according to a canvas tent expert.

All stitched canvas will initially leak. Multiple soakings serve to swell and shrink the stitched joins until they become one. After that they are waterproof for life. He alsio said, NEVER EVER put anything (be it wax, glue, sealant or Coke?) on the seams. Let them swell and seal naturally and you will happy for evermore.

Giving it another soak before you go will do it no harm of course.

I followed his advice and it worked on my Camper.

Jim.

Mike, the initial 'wetting down' is to expand the canvas & thread from where the needle with 2 threads has passed through the canvas.

brought a new centre pole tent recently, put it up to give it a soaking, could not put it away for 3 weeks because it rained every day, and it wouldnot dry out. lol Not that I am complaining.
Cheers Pete

I have a centre pole tent which leaked persistently in very heavy rain (a few years ago) despite repeated soakings. Took it back to maker who had it for several weeks. Eventually got it back with a couple of bottles of seam sealer. I applied that with a cotton bud along each seam and it hasn't leaked since. Southern Cross said that they don't know why but sometimes a tent leaks more than normal - could even be that the needle used to sow it was nearing replacement time and the stitch holes were made slightly larger than normal by the blunter end. Anyhow, the sealant fixed it and it has since withstood extremely heavy rain.

Mike,

cotton fibres actually swell when washed/soaked. This effectively closes up not only the sewing holes but the holes in the actual weave as well. It doesn't revert back to it's brand new original state. As an upholsterer, I've had similar issues with fabrics when they are cleaned/washed - particularly loose covers. You shouldn't need to re-do it.

Nice to be able to give you advice for a change ;-)

cheers,

Steve

Sorry people, remiss of me, I forgot to say thank you for all the responses to this thread.

I'll not worry about wetting the swag in the future and hopefully natural rainfall will do it more often anyway :)

Mike Harding