I have an old raceface waterproof jacket that I love. However the waterproof finish has come off and it lets water in quiet badly. Is it worth reproofing it? And shall I just use some Nikwax stuff?

I have just reproofed an old Endura MT500 jacket that used to leak loads with the Muc-off spray on stuff and have been very impressed, much more so than when I’ve tried with Nikwax in the past

I’ve used the nikwax wash in stuff before, worked fine.
It’s the only reproofer I’ve tried though.

thanks I’ll have a go at reproofing then.

If it’s really bad, I’d NikWash it and then attack it with the MucOff Fabric Protect.
The Mic-Off stuff is really good, worked wonders on an old jacket I had.

I have an old Freestyle Goretex jacket, probably the first item of cycling-specific clothing I bought in about 1994. It proved its worth on wet days climbing in Scotland and biblical rain walking in Canada but after time water stopped beading up and the fabric started getting soaked, although it never leaked. So one fine day, thinking it owed me nothing I hung it up and soaked it in Thompson’s Water Seal. It didn’t fall apart, it took a day or two for the kerosine smell to evaporate off and the jacked turned out quite stiff but extremely repellant. After that it softened and it now has a nice soft handle and still good repellancy; I just can’t seem to kill it.

lunge, why do I need to use both?

I see Endura are selling their own proofer now

I use the Nikwax tech wash first and then the re-proofer on my two old RF jackets.
Small trick after it’s been re-proofed is to put it in the tumble dryer on a low heat setting to dry.

thanks everyone. much appreciated.

I iron my eVent jacket. Sounds crazy and I didn’t believe it but having tried on a low heat I now use a medium heat with a thin cloth in between (tea towels etc). Restores the water repellency to like-new

But you do get creases on the sleeves!

The thing with the specialist cleaners like the Nikwax and Grangers stuff is that they’re not particularly good at cleaning. Normal detergents – Persil, Aerial etc – leave behind optical brighteners and wetting agents that are bad for water-repellent finishes. But, what you can do is first wash the jacket in, say, Persil to get it properly clean, then re-wash it using something like the Nikwax cleaner. Double rinse it, then apply the reproofing product according to manufacturer’s instructions to restore the surface water repellency.

It might fix it. Might not. Depends on whether the waterproof part of the fabric – coating or membrane – has deteriorated or holed, but it won’t do any harm.

The heat treatment works by reactivating the original factory DWR treatment, mobilising polymer molecule chains or something like that, but don’t iron reflective / plastic zips / badges etc or you might kill them. Most aftermarket reproofers don’t need heat treatment these days.

Whatever Endura is selling will be rebadged product from someone like Grangers, Storm or Nikwax I’d have thought.

yeah I’m pretty sure it’s originally treated with a waterproofer over the fabric so I now expect it to work.

I have an Endura Stealth softshell that doesn’t bead – any recommendations for that?

Same as above

Yeah, soft shell basically works on the same principles as a waterproof. If it has a fleece liner or owt, you might be better using a spray-on reproofer. Nikwax sells a specific Soft Shell Proof but it’s pretty much the same stuff as the waterproofing products.

https://www.nikwax.com/en-gb/products/productdetail.php?productid=555&itemid=-1&fabricid=-1