Here's the link to their Rewaxing Video
Here's the link to their site, Lark.
Cheers!
Friday, March 4, 2011
How To Rewax Your Barbour Jacket Video by Lark
Lark is a Vancouver clothing store that I first found while researching Barbour Repair Kits. They had some great pictures of an old jacket and a repair kit. Good stuff. They have a fantastic blog and I've followed them on their Facebook page. Great style and great presentation.
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After my favorite Barbour brown jacket (aka Buddy) which they stop making found its way into the hands of an illiterate dry cleaner, I had no other choice but to rewax the jacket. Something people have stated is impossible. Don’t listen to other people without thinking about it yourself first. They are wrong. You can save your Barbour jacket.
ReplyDeleteThe secret to rewaxing a washed or dry cleaned Barbour Wax Jacket is the bottom seam of the jacket. If you remove the rear bottom seam, you have access to the inside of the entire jacket. This way I was able to place a large black trash bag inside to protect the jacket liner while I applied the wax to the other side. I also used thin flexible sheets of hard plastic 12 x 12 inches (cutting boards) as well to minimize contact with the plastic bag and makes application easier as well due to its stiff form. Let it dry and harden with the hard plastic in place. The next morning separate the hard plastic from the inside and go to the next section leaving the black plastic bag in place. You will need more than one large plastic trash bags.
So far so good. This step is slow. You have to do this over an entire week since you have to go from section to section. I started with the rear section from side seam to side seam, then hit it with hair dryer and let it sit over night to dry. Step and repeat until done. Remember that you will want to let the jacket sit and dry for a week afterwards to dry out the solvent, then fold it up and put it in the freezer to cool the inside to prevent the inside liner from soaking any wax. Then stuff the jacket with dry cotton towels or old rags/shirts. Then go back and do a final coat on the outside of the frozen jacket to even out things. Final step is to hit it with blow dryer with shirts inside and let dry overnight. Excess wax will soak into old shirts instead of the liner.
Now remember that this wax has some sort of solvent in it and that solvent helps it soak into the cotton and keeps the wax soft. Once the solvent evaporates when drying for a week, the wax hardens, stays put and does not move from the outer shell to the liner. If you do not let this jacket dry for a week or more afterwards you will end up soaking wax into the liner and have to start over washing your jacket. Let it dry for a month in a warm dry place if possible. Then wear and enjoy next winter.
It is sad that the people at Barbour don’t just charge $200 to repair or refresh the jacket. With the people and equipment around to sow the seam back on, they should pull all the seams, separate the liner from the shell, then wash, repair and rewax shell then sow it back together. Hell, I bet people would pay more to save their buddy. Since they wont, this is what you can do to save your jacket.
The big trick to this is to stuff the jacket with white bath towels or shirts between the outer shell and the inner liner then have at it with the hair dryer to even out the jacket. Mine looks like new and smells much better.
ReplyDeleteI was just asked why do you stuff it with towels. The towels soak up any extra wax when you hit it with a hair dryer or let it sit out in the sun. Again this keeps the was off of the liner which is why we went through all this trouble. If you just wax the jacket and dont protect the liner, it will soak with wax and then soak into you and your clothing when you wear it.
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