Anyone proofed their cotton ?

pitdog

pitdog

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Apr 13, 2007
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I noticed that Filsons Tin Cloth garments are oil treated cotton :
" Oil Finish Tin Cloth, 12.5 oz. 100% cotton duck, 2 ply by 2 ply, paraffin treated for maximum water repellency".

Has anyone tried proofing any of your cotton garments yourself, Carhartt's etc ?
 
No, reapplied oil to my Kakadu Drover's Jacket last week though. I used their proprietary oil, it was a little daunting but pretty simple in the end.
 
I have never tried it but I knew a guy who did that to just about everything he owned. He said it was easy ,what was cool was he could carry water in his boonie hat and it never leaked.
 
I've never had any success. The closest I've come was proofing some cotton canvas I'd painted up for use as a hide. I had to slather on so much proofing it stank so had to be left down the garden for months before the smell faded. By that time it was a mess so I binned it.

Never had any success doing combat jackets and whatnot. Ultimately, if the stuff has holes in it it's going to leak unless you can encrust it with such a thickness that the holes are filled. That's not really practical with regular cotton fabric. I have done a bunch with Nikwax not because it made them waterproof but because it reduces water ingress into the fibers, and that speeds up drying time. That is valuable to me in its own right.

That said, I saw a guy's page the other day and he seemed to be having some success by mixing paraffin wax and Vaseline together. His standards of waterproof and mine could be very different though. Looksie

An obvious contender in this field is the G1000 fabric of Fjällräven that seems popular with the Neo-Bushcrafters. That's a wax based offering that needs to be reapplied after cleaning. That's on a polycotton though so I don't know how well that wax would work on regular cotton. I doubt it is significantly more waterproof than a pair of Nikwaxed Craghoppers. If it were a watch I'd probably call it splash proof. Even they seem to know it doesn't work well as a waterproof because they have a membrane called Hydratic in their waterproof gear. convoluted affair
 
Anybody tried NikWax "Cotton Proof"(is that what you used baldtaco?), or something similar?
I have a love/hate relationship with treated cotton/canvas, but am also interested in doing a pair of Carharrts, and a jacket for work this winter.
 
OwenM said:
Anybody tried NikWax "Cotton Proof"(is that what you used baldtaco?), or something similar?
I have a love/hate relationship with treated cotton/canvas, but am also interested in doing a pair of Carharrts, and a jacket for work this winter.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the one. How effective it is will be dependent on how tightly woven the cotton is to begin with. I've no idea about Carharrts so I can't speculate.

That said, I use a Nikwax on fleeces too, not because it could ever waterproof it but because it makes shaking water out of it even easier. I figure it must help moisture vapor transit too, allowing me to pump out sweat for dispersal by my outerwear better.
 
OwenM said:
Anybody tried NikWax "Cotton Proof"(is that what you used baldtaco?), or something similar?
I have a love/hate relationship with treated cotton/canvas, but am also interested in doing a pair of Carharrts, and a jacket for work this winter.
Click to expand...

I've used it on a replica Denison smock and a Wall's Blizzard Pruf jacket (the latter is similar to a Carhart). It helps make them a bit more water repellent but by no means waterproof.

This is the Denison smock, as worn during a 2008 zombie outbreak in PA:


dsc_0428_2.jpg


;)
 
living in oregon helped me proof all my carharts quick. after living here for 1 month I think it was sunny 4 days. the first thing I looked into was a repelent.
 
Not quite the same, but I've had good success with Sno-Seal on a pair of Army surplus canvas mukluks. Sno-Seal, I believe, is a mix of beeswax and petroleum jelly. I wear the mukluks a lot during the winter snow season here and they've held up well; I re-apply as needed. I use a hair dryer to melt the product into the fabric.
 
I done it with limited success. We were phesant hunting out in western Nebraska, and I tore the crothc out of my cordura faced hunting pants on a barbed wire fence. The local farm store only had carhartt clothes. I purchased a pair of the double front pants. I had some obenauf's leather oil for my boots, and my cousin had some filson wax from the chaps that he picked up at cabelas. I applied the oil first, then the filson wax over the top. I only did the double front area just like the typical hunting pants. I used the oil sparingly, and slather on the wax which I melted into the pants with a hair dryer. It kept the water from the tall grass from soaking into the front of the pants, and the back did get wet along with the upper thigh area. It does add weight to the pants, and carhartt pants are not made to walk multiple miles in because of the weight, and the seams chafe. I prefer the cordura double fronts over a poplin pant, and wash with nikwax in the rinse cycle. I stay dry, and have a light weight pant that I can walk 20 miles in keeping my inner thigh comfortable.
 
I'll second the sno-seal if you don't want to mix your own stuff. You can't get much more waterproof than wax, and as an added bonus you can use it on your leather goods like boots for the best waterproof finish there is.

I used it on a canvas hat I have and it worked great, it's also all I use on my boots.
 
What's wrong with silicon?:confused:

I've treated a tent with wax years ago and it wasn't very satisfactory, smelly and doesn't look too good.
Silicon is practically unnoticeable and lasts for years and years, on a tent anyway. I've used it on coats and shoes too.
 
stingray4540 said:
I'll second the sno-seal if you don't want to mix your own stuff. You can't get much more waterproof than wax, and as an added bonus you can use it on your leather goods like boots for the best waterproof finish there is.

I used it on a canvas hat I have and it worked great, it's also all I use on my boots.
Click to expand...

I like snow seal for my boots and leather goods also. Stingray got me using it on everything.
I think you would eat the stuff if you could stingray...lol
 
A.W.U.K. said:
What's wrong with silicon?:confused:

I've treated a tent with wax years ago and it wasn't very satisfactory, smelly and doesn't look too good.
Silicon is practically unnoticeable and lasts for years and years, on a tent anyway. I've used it on coats and shoes too.
Click to expand...

What's wrong is that the stuff is worthless, at least in my experience, and in my opinion of course.:D

I used to use silicon, but my feet would always get wet and cold, and I would re-apply it every year. Then I treated my wife's boots with sno-seal, and after tromping through the snow all day, my feet were wet and cold again, while her boots weren't even discolored. I switched to wax based products since then and have never looked back.
 
This would be something interesting to test. I have some scrap canvas laying around, but money's tight and paying 10 bucks for a bunch of waterproofing oils and waxes isn't really practical. Alot of the locals swear by Hubard's Shoe Grease for waterproofing EVERYTHING, and it must work because the winter and wet seasons can get pretty extreme, but I'd definitely check out that Kakadu stuff. Their Oilskin IS waterproof, so they must be doing something right...
 
Here's another I'll throw out for fun: Some years ago I was seriously into blackpowder shooting and mountain man stuff. A friend gave me a load of fat from a bear he shot. I rendered it down and mixed it 50/50 with beeswax I got from a local beekeeper.

I've got a pot-load of it. The beeswax keeps the bear grease from going rancid. I found out mice like it, so I keep it covered. It makes great patch grease for a muzzleloader. I've used it on leather, haven't tried it yet on canvas or cotton fabric. I think I might :)

Edit: It's all natural, you could spread it on toast.
 
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