Repairing Warmbac Oversuit Waterproofing

[the morganism]

I have a warmbac oversuit which I have frankensteined and kept alive with numerous repairs. While rips and tears have been easy to fix I have run into a new problem. The inside of the suit has some kind of treatment which has been applied to it to waterproof the fabric. On my suit this coating has degraded to the point where only around 25% of it remains making the suit far less waterproof.

In the interest of rectifying this I emailed Warmbac and while helpful they were unable to recommend what I should use to recoat the suit. As a result I have done some of my own research and as far as I can tell cordura is normally waterproofed with a polyeurathane treatment which can readily be bought online. I will likely buy some of this and apply it to my suit as an experiment but I would be very interested to hear from anyone who may have tried anything similar. If this treatment works it would be wonderful to be able to restore worn out Warmbacs to their former glory. I suspect I'm not the only caver with a Warmbac that's been thrashed to the point of death and repaired several times.

Would be great to hear from people,
Ben

 

[Cantclimbtom]

Never tried it... good luck

Easy Waterproof Clothing

Easy Waterproof Clothing: While I was making my glow tie I realized that the solution I made to apply the glow power to the fabric was incredibly hydrophobic, which makes sense as it's silicone based. After some experimentation I found it was a great method for waterproofing…

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Edit: I *think* mineral spirits is what the US calls White Spirit in the UK.

 

[Pitlamp]

I seem to remember watching a video on YouTube a while ago about making a DIY waterproofing compound that can be painted on, using silicone sealant dissolved in (I think) acetone.

But last time I had this problem on an equivalent suit made by Beaver I just turned it inside out and painted on some Evostik from a 250 cm3 tin onto the affected areas. (There's a risk of a bit soaking through so don't do this job on your best living room carpet.)

 

[Fulk]

At the risk of sounding patronizing, remember that if you use acetone it is very volatile and very flammable; I remember a little anecdote told by a chemistry tutor when I was at university. He said that he'd been called in to investigate an industrial accident when somebody in an office accidentally topped herself. He deduced that she had been using a small bottle of nail varnish (AKA acetone) when something (I forget what . . . maybe someone lighting a fag in those far-off days) caused a spark, which caused the bottle to blow up.

 

[the morganism]

I seem to remember watching a video on YouTube a while ago about making a DIY waterproofing compound that can be painted on, using silicone sealant dissolved in (I think) acetone.

But last time I had this problem on an equivalent suit made by Beaver I just turned it inside out and painted on some Evostik from a 250 cm3 tin onto the affected areas. (There's a risk of a bit soaking through so don't do this job on your best living room carpet.)

Wonderful, thankyou for the advice. Did you find that the evostick worked well and lasted nicely?

Ben

 

[Pitlamp]

It's not a perfect result and does make the suit slightly more stiff but it was an improvement.
Bear in mind I applied it to areas in need, not the whole suit. Maybe try a small area first to see how you get on?

 

[ChrisB]

I had a cockpit liner for a folding kayak where the waterproof had mostly peeled off (and smelled like vomit). I rinsed it several times in hot water to remove the rest then gave it 3 coats of Fabsil Gold. It was then fully waterproof, I could fill it with water with no leaks. Don't know how it lasted as I sold it shortly afterwards.

I would recommend Fabsil Gold as a brush on silicone rather than a DiY with acetone. It's not silly money.