UKC

Hi folks,

I have a Rab Baltoro Guide jacket which I bought 3-4 years ago. It used to be a great piece of kit. But for the past year or so it has started to wet out really easily in the rain to such an extent that it's not much better than wearing a wooly jumper.

I've tried all the usual suggestions to fix this, including tumble drying, ironing, using wash-in DWR solution and spray-on solution, and then more tumble drying - avoiding using detergent in the washing machine all the while. This has the effect of making a small amount of water bead off but the jacket still wets out almost immediately.

Does anyone have any good ideas what's going on here? Is the fabric just old and knackered (it is not visibly damaged or frayed, in fact it looks in good nick)? Any suggestions how I can improve the water resistance?

Thanks!

In reply to JHC:

Buy a new jacket. This is why the softshell concept is in some respects bollocks. I'm sure Captain Paranoia will tell me I'm talking rubbish mind.

In reply to JHC:

This happened to my Baltoro (pretty much from new) - I got rid of it. Personally I think powershield works much better for leg wear than jackets in damp conditions

In reply to JHC:
My (limited) understanding is that new stuff is coated with a teflon type when manufactured, or perhaps heat-applied wax/silicone type, and that when this wears off you must reapply the original teflon variety. If you don't use this same 'toxic' DWR, the wax type will not work as well as the teflon type would have/did, even though it adheres ok. If you then try the teflon type, it is too late, as it cannot adhere to the silicone/wax surface.

In short, reapply the toxic one with the option of going 'green' as the jacket ages, or apply and keep using the less effective nikwax treatment as your only choice.

That might be completely wrong; I anticipate someone with extensive knowledge posting a clarification or correction.

Softshell is pretty sh*te when it comes to DWR reproofing, as mentioned above. I just accept that I will have to rely on the fabric itself from such a point onwards.

Jon

Edit: I suppose there must be a way of stripping out the wax using some strong cleaning chemicals, and starting again?

In reply to JHC:

Buying a new jacket doesn't seem like a very enticing solution really. It's a cliche but for £200 I'd expect something that lasted a little longer and worked a little better... etc, etc.

This teflon thing is interesting. I'm not quite sure I understand. Are you saying I ought to try to clean the jacket of all DWR then reproof with the teflon compound? Do you know where I can get this?

In reply to JHC:
I wrote a method on how to reapply DWR and so far I've reproofed everything from eVent, to Gore-Tex, to insulated jackets, to softshell trousers and jackets - this method has worked on all of them. http://gearandmountains.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/how-to-reproof-waterproof-...

Water repellence is a combination of chemical and physical effects - if you get some low surface energy chemicals (eg the stuff in Nikwax or Grangers) to stick to the jacket then you should get some water repellence, but only if the physical roughness of the surface plays along too: something like a lotus leaf or bird feather shed water incredibly well because they are oily but also because their surface is rough. Roughness can be thought of as an 'amplifier' for the chemical effect of hydrophobicity/philicity, but - confusingly - it has to be the right sort of roughness! Snagged and damaged yarns won't help water repellence at all, whereas a consistent roughness such as you might get on some fabrics, is helpful in repellence.

If the method above doesn't work (and does work on other jackets) then it might be that the face fabric is just the 'wrong sort' of roughness. Come to think of it, I have a Powerstretch jacket that used to be highly repellent but I've found that hard to reproof as well.

In reply to Mr Fuller:

Thanks for the link. That page describes pretty much exactly what I've tried with the jacket - after the reproofing didn't work very well the first time I thought I'd try a bit harder and do the job as properly as I could so I researched it a bit.

So from what you say in the rest of your post there could be two problems. Either the DWR compound is not sticking to the fabric properly (possibly related to this teflon/wax thing mentioned before?) or there is a problem with the structure of the fabric itself. As I said, it doesn't look very different from when it was new... but maybe I can't see damage on the scale that matters for water repellancy.

In reply to JHC:
That's right, but the teflon/wax thing isn't quite.The DWR that comes out the factory is certainly about the best repellence you will ever get but it is not completely permanent. Imagine it like lots of hairs (molecular hairs if you like - they're that small) sticking up straight out of the fabric surface. At the end of each hair is a water repellent group. Over time, these hairs flatten down and no longer stand upright and the non-water-repellent groups on the sides of the hairs start to influence the properties. Tumble drying will 'reactivate' the molecules and make them stand up again, restoring repellence. However, with enough abrasion and enough chemical contamination the 'hairs' can either be abraded from the surface, or clogged up completely - that's the end of them being useful and so tumble drying will no longer restore the factory DWR. That's when the after-sales products can patch the gaps, but, as you say, only if they will stick.

It may be that the fabric has numerous microscopic bits of damage that you can't see, and it might be an influence of the stretch that's causing it. Basically, I don't know, but if you're struggling to reproof and you've got the fabric super-clean to start with and have then done everything that should make it work, it sounds like it's a difficult fabric surface to reproof. Did it ever reproof very well? Maybe ask Rab and see what they say?

In reply to JHC:
The thing that's probably stopping the fresh dwr treatment from working is likely to be dirt and grease. You need to remove this and unfortunately tech wash and natural soap is just not up to the job.

Although detergent is often blamed for destroying dwr coatings, in this case it's what's needed. Pick a non biological detergent without any smelly additives, conditioners or bleach (so no daz) and give your garment a cool (30 degrees ish) wash on a gentle setting so you don't risk damaging seam tapes. Don't spin and give it a double rinse.

Then give your towels a hot wash washing out the detergent draw with hot water etc.
Then wash your garments in pure soap using the same gentle settings as above.
Then use a dwr treatment.

If you don't believe me have a read of the rab website.

In reply to JHC:

I've had some stuff that has been revived from a similar state by following the steps outlined in the link and by Gethin_allen.

To recoat, I used some spray-on Nikwax stuff that was marketed as being specifically for softshells. It's a bit messy and smelly and takes a bit of work but has done a great job several times over on some of my veteran kit. Not sure whether/how this is different from the wash-in stuff, but it certainly seems to work.

BTW: I've always 'activated' the new treatment using an iron and, in general, the hotter the iron the better the outcome IME. I now normally have it as hot as I dare for each garment and take it slowly.

In reply to Removed User:


I might baulk at 'bollocks', but I'm certainly not a soft shell evangelist... My take on them is that they have somewhat niche application, and the particular usage niche for a particular type of soft shell is, well... niche. I don't think there's any one soft shell suited to universal application.

If the type of soft shell you pick on a particular day happens to match the conditions, then it can be great. If it's not suited to the conditions, then it can be miserable...

I wrote the following in 2004:

<quote>
The other thing I'd say is that a soft shell won't cope with heavy or prolonged rain that we often get in the UK (and really shouldn't be expected to), and for long duration trips, a proper waterproof shell is required. For walking, this can be ultra-lightweight. Soft shell is, I think, intended for single day trips where you can retreat, if you don't intend to carry a real waterproof.
</quote>

I don't think my view has changed much...

As for the re-proofing issue, my advice would be similar to Mr. Fuller's. The only things I might do differently are to use as aggressive a detergent wash of the garment as you dare, followed by a towels/no detergent or soap boil wash to clean the washing machine (DON'T boil wash the garment unless the label says you can, which, for outdoor gear, is unlikely), and then do a soap wash of the garment (to remove traces of detergent), and a re-proof.

Sometimes, soap isn't enough to remove ingrained grease & dirt, and you need a detergent wash.

Sometimes one detergent wash seems to knacker the DWR, and no amount of soap washing will remove the detergent traces and restore the DWR.

The surface roughness issue is an interesting one, and usually related to the density of the weave/knit of the fabric. If you get a weave that's very open, the water repellent force simply isn't enough to stop water passing through the gaps between the fibres. For a soft shell, this means you get wet.

Generally, I find most DWRs to be miss-named. They're not durable, and they're not very water repellent. The advantage of being a gear whore is that a new shiny thing has been bought before the DWR on the old one is too knackered...

In reply to hamsforlegs:


My suspicion is that heating after a Nikwax treatment allows the wax to stick better; maybe soaking into the fibres, or hardening the coating in some way, thus making it more durable.

Absolutely no 'scientific proof' for this suspicion...

In reply to JHC:

Generally, I use a hot iron on waterproofs and softshells, using Nikwax, probably hotter on the former as I have melted the eVent logo on one jacket. Nothing seems to work as well as the original treatment, for reasons Mr Fuller gave, but I am determined to only use Grangers/fluorocarbon based sprays the next time I treat something for the first time onwards, just to see how it compares.

I am now interested in whether or not the 'new' fluorocarbon-free DWR from Sympatex is any good and if it does work, how does the 'Blue Sign' qualification of "best available technology" relate to the use of exclusive/patented things like that? There is a load of reading on Patagonia's website that got my head spinning.

Apparently, after checking, there isn't any silicone in the general outdoor DWR treatments. It is wax types or fluorocarbon types; though maybe Epic is silicone, the stuff that coats each fibre and is reactivated simply by rewashing?

Does anyone know if fluorocarbon aftermarket sprays work as well on garments that may have some residue of Nikwax on them? Did Grangers ever work well when used on Paramo (before it got complicated)?

In reply to captain paranoia:

Although I own a few soft shell jackets of different materials I must agree with your view on their applications being niche. The polartech stuff is great for climbing grit as it's super durable. The gore windstopper stuff is more waterproof.
I always wonder why the rab fusion range didn't keep going, it sounded ideal. I have some fusion trousers but they are a touch too big annoying.

In reply to captain paranoia:

Thanks for the detailed advice (to all of you). There's a few things to try here before I give up, which is what I was after.
I actually just gave my jacket another iron, much hotter than I had tried before. A quick dousing suggests this has helped a bit, so I guess the tumble drying/ironing that I was doing was not hot enough. I'll start from the beginning with the new info and see how it goes...

In reply to captain paranoia:

Gave the detergent a go, with Grangers spray on, tumble dry and a hot iron - hey presto - great success! Water beads off very nicely again and it's difficult to get the jacket to soak through. Brilliant.

In reply to JHC:

Thanks for that, interesting stuff. I'll try the same with my Powershield softshell and I might well amend my instructions to incorporate the detergent step too - until now I thought it was only really necessary on eVent.