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One of the tasks I have wanted to complete with the drive-away Westy circus tent that we picked up is to make it water repellent. In observing the condition of the canvas, it became apparent that it most likely was not very water tight. The previous owner had also stated in advance that it leaked a little and that he repeatedly put a tarp over the top whenever he used it. I suppose this helped to keep the water out, but it’s also left a ration of fiber glass on the top of the tent that manages to get all over my arms whenever it is used.
To help with making it water tight, I picked up some spray from Kiwi (3M was another company I was considering) called Camp Dry. The first thing my wife observed on the can was the fact that it needed to dry for 48 hours before being packed back up, to prevent cracking. Well, this wasn’t exactly convenient but oh well. Today we finally set up the tent in one of the stalls of our garage. We left the upright polls unextended so the roof of the tent was at about waist/chest level. Then we proceeded to spray the top of the tent. We are only doing this part for now and we’ll what it looks like tomorrow. There was one warning on the can stating that the color of the material may change. More reading indicated that this usually meant the color of the material turned only slightly darker. Not a big deal to us.
Of course, now that we have done this, there won’t be a lick of precipitation at the campout this weekend I’ll post the results of the Kiwi stuff after I give it a hose test in a couple days.