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Topic: Leaking canvas tent after cleaning

zamzoo

03/8/2024 at 10:54am
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Hi folks,

Our De Witt Condor vis a vis has always (since we got it 2 years ago) had minor leaks from a spot or two that got saturated, I assume a spot clean previously.

On a trip recently I used a tarp over it, and the line touching the canvas caused a line of saturation and eventual dripping. I assumed some imprenation of the guy has gone into the tent canvas.

So I though I would buy fabsil cleaner and clean up the spots properly. washed it out on a site as best I could. Now I appear to have made several giant areas that get saturated and leak!

Suspected I must not have washed out the cleaner well enough, so got the jetwash on it and thought I'd rinsed most of it out. Put about £90 worth of Fabsil gold on it (6 l) and it's still leaking. Sad face. Some areas that were jetwashed are fine and repell water nicely, but the big wet patches apear to be near or where I used the fabsil tent cleaner.

Any ideas? do I just need to get a hose and rinse rinse rinse? Or is this old little tent just had enough? Suspect it's not as thick canvas as something like a cabanon.

the particularly leaky bits apear to be where the inner frame meets a seam at the edges of the roof, this is a very dripy area now.

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marg6

03/8/2024 at 11:20am
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you dont need to buy anything to clean tent fabric, all you need is water and a soft brush and plenty of space to erect the tent, somewhere you can leave it to dry thoroughly afterwards.

anything that contains a soap of any sort will remove the waterproofing, and i think that is what has happened here, so i suggest that you rinse rinse and rinse again. get all that cleaner out of the fabric. once you have done that your going to have to re proof it all, and give it several coat allowing to dry well inbetween each one

zamzoo

03/8/2024 at 3:55pm
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Thanks.

I was quite annoyed with the fabsil tent cleaner after I'd used it. Didn't look any cleaner and very hard to wash out.

I've given it another good spongeing with the hose today, will let it dry and do it again. Not seeing any suds... (but then I wasn't with the jetwasher) maybe it's all out. will do a few more to be sure. It's possible the surprise rain came before the tent was completely dry after proofing.

Reproofing is expensive! going to switch to the regular fabsil if multiple coats are needed I think, much cheaper than gold.

marg6

03/8/2024 at 5:52pm
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get a big tin of it and then using a garden sprayer on a totally non windy day spray the whole tent, far far cheaper than using the hairspray sized tins

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