Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Canvas Tent waterproofing

I searched for this and was surprised I didn't find much.

I have an old canvas wall tent that needs to be treated. I used Canvak years ago but it has gotten pricey AND hard to find.
Have heard of people using Thompson's and Olympic Water Seal.

What do you use?

Thanks,
dt

I can't remember the product but surfed it up going through Colorado's Davis company. Tent was in fine shape with no issues, but with 25+ seasons of cooking therein the inside was pretty dingy compared to the outside. Cost about $100 and mixed it into 10 gal of water which was enough for two applications. On a breezy and hot summer day, I first did a thorough inside and out Dawn dish soap and water wash, a heavy rinse inside and out, and let it dry. First application was with a weed sprayer and broom sweeping it about both inside and out. Let that dry and did a second spray on which pretty much just ran off.

Edited: Did a little surfing. and this was the product Water proofing link

I've always used Thompson's Waterseal but they've changed formulation to some gooey mess.

I just tarp them with a poly tarp.Then I know they are water proof.Snow slides off easier too.

Napfa and pine sap.

You want to use something that will still allow the canvas to breathe. TWS is not good for canvas tents.
You could just set it up on a bright sunny day and wash it down then let the sun dry it and shrink it back up tighter. Then you can just use a tarp like stated above for a rain fly.
I would get the stuff Davis sells and use a tarp for a rain fly. You'll be dry in a driving rain then.

Some years ago I had a backpacking tent with a leaky floor. I used a garden sprayer and Thompson's Water Seal. It worked but it added a thick layer to the floor and the smell was so bad that it had to sit out in the sun for a couple weeks before it went away.

Home Depot has some stuff called Olympic Waterguard that I recently used on a sun canopy. It had been previously coated and the Waterguard left a film on the old coating. It didn't soak in. I don't know what it would do on plain fabric. I haven't had it out in the rain since then so I don't know how effective it is.

I have used home made wax/oil proofing on other items, like packs, bedrolls, tote bags and hats. Google it but it is basically 1/3 Beeswax, 1/3 Boiled Linseed Oil, 1/3 Turpentine. I would go easy and use a fairly dilute mix. The roof can get three coats and the sides two. But if you try with one heavy coat it will be a sticky mess. Set it up in the sun and a heat gun helps to absorb the wax faster. It will need to air out for a week or so. Test it after curing with a garden hose.

But as others have written a poly or separate treated tarp as a fly is better in many ways, especially if you use the tent in warmer weather. The untreated fabric breathes much better. A cheap canvas tarp could be treated and it will save adding weight to the main tent. The double roof is better for both heat and inclement weather. This is the standard in Africa.

Thanks for all the great input. .

This is a "period" tent for mountain man rendezvous so we wanted wanted a period correct option. My wife made a canvas rain fly and an awning so we will just water proof those.
I use a plastic tarp for a rain fly when hunting.

Thanks

I remember my first trip to Boy Scout Camp. '63 at Camp Geiger above the Missouri River outside of St Joseph Missouri. We camped in a new campsite, yellow Missouri clay and Loess soil. It was great until the first night and the skeeters started landing at Rosecrans Air Field. The lame-o's that had never used skeeter repellant squirted their tents with it. A small amount of tuloene is in that and the water repellant is wax based . Instant removal of the repellant on canvas. The rest of the week it rained. The tents were on nice wood bases and some of them went over the hill with the clay. But the ones with repellant on them were soaked anyway. Water came through in the same pattern as they squirted the repellant on the tent roof. I was glad I only put the repellant on my skin. Now it would worry me but back then and for years I used DEET. Mybe that's why I am so screwed up in the head. PTSD and DEET. Bad mixture. Daddy's tell all your children.......

Thanks all,

Tejano - a couple of questions:
roughly how big a batch of your the linseed, bee's wax, turpentine mix would you suppose it would take for 2 15x15 sections? Do you think a gallon total would do 3 light coats?
Do you apply hot/warm to keep the bee's wax liquid?
How do I appear sincere when I claim to have no knowledge of what happened to the neighbor's bee hive?
Any other tips?

I used two 1-lb coffee cans full for three coats on a 54 x 60 ' bedroll. That actually turned out to be too much and I had to remove some. I made a mistake and used a toilet bowl ring for the first batch, these used to be beeswax but are now petrolatum which is more like cosmoline. You will need quite a bit about 4-6 oz. per square foot for three coats. A gallon may do it especially if you dilute it slightly.

Best to apply hot and I keep the mix in a hot water bath and then use a heat gun or hair dryer to help it soak in. I have been known to throw the items in a commercial dryer at the laundromat and then high tail it out of there.

Just avoid bee stings and do not get honey on your tent in bear country, although bee propalis is an excellent preservative. Some people add paraffin but I didn't find it very useful. Do a google search there is a lot of info at the various sites on this.

In case you don't look up other sources. Heat this outside and an electric burner is best. Or a sand bath or double boiler. Heat the oil first and then add shaved wax, remove from the heat source and add turpentine. I would start with a 1/4,1/4, 1/2 mix at first the half being turpentine. Wash or dispose of all applications items in a water bath as they can spontaneously combust.

Forgot to add that for most applications I add pine tar. It will alter the color from light tan to almost olive brown depending on how much you use. This adds to the mold and mildew resistance and helps keep the fabric pliable. The Stockholm Tar is the best and Birch tar is good too, they both smell great. The Ferriers Pine tar works but stinks in most peoples opinion. I have grown to like it but it smells more like asphaltum than pine tar..

I would call Davis and see what they reccomend.

I just called Davis as I am interested in another bedroll. They said the tent is already treated and has a lifetime guarantee. They said the wax treatment will reduce the breathing to the point that condensation or frost can occur inside the tent. This will also increase chances of mildew if stored before it is completely dry. So if I wanted a more traditional tent I would see if they could use a bark tan canvas to start with. White is also traditional as seen in many old photos.

Some of the color on the older tents was from having a fire so close to the tent that the smoke colored the tent. I don't recommend this as it is too risky on getting spark holes or catching the whole thing on fire.

If you have already done this than it can be washed out but only if the fabric is pre-shrunk. A tumble in a commercial dryer just hot enough to melt the wax will reduce it and usually not shrink anything.

Like I said the canvas needs to breathe.
Use the right treatment if you must do it.
Wetting and letting the shot sun dry it out will shrink the canvas and help it become more water tight.

A cheap poly tarp works just fine as a rain fly too, maybe a cheap canvas drop cloth.

When I first acquired mine about 30 years ago, I did about 3 inside/outside soaks on a hot summer day and got maybe 4 inches of shrink on length, width, and height. It has never leaked winter or summer. I do tarp the roof during extended winter outings, not as a rain fly, but solely to assure a snow load slides off if camp is unattended during a serious dump. My exercised up near the top of this thread was mostly aimed at dong a thorough cleaning of the inside, and my thoughts were a soap and water scrubbing might reduce its repellent abilities.

The Isso compound I linked above was sourced as a suggestion from the Davis site.

This, my tent is only 25 or so years old! Every couple years i put it up in the back yard! Saturate the canvas with water and let the sun shrink it tight!

Thanks for all the great information.

The wall tent is my wife's Mountain Man Rendezvous tent that she used for years. She is very sensitive to chemical odors and worried about off-gassing. So she found some stuff on the internet that supposed to be good water proofing, no smell, no nasty chemicals and attracts unicorns and forest creatures (the Disney kind not the real kind). I will post the name of it and a link when it gets here.

We will only water proof the awning and rain fly as recommended.

Thanks
S.H.

I agree a poly tarp works amazing, I've made the mistake of not getting one for Australia since I forgot our summer is their winter.

Horrible mistake, sorry for the compress image, i had to make it fit.