I haven't been able to find anything on the internet about oiling silk to make it waterproof. I suspect that it's greasy and horrible like oilcloth anyway, so it's probably no great loss. Does anyone know anything about it?

This is probably a really dumb idea, but I was thinking that thinned silicon sealer (as used for seam sealing) might work for sealing silk. Has anyone tried it?

I haven't been able to find anything on the internet about oiling silk to make it waterproof. I suspect that it's greasy and horrible like oilcloth anyway, so it's probably no great loss. Does anyone know anything about it?

This is probably a really dumb idea, but I was thinking that thinned silicon sealer (as used for seam sealing) might work for sealing silk. Has anyone tried it?

never heard of this before:cool: neo

Why?????

Sil Nylon is already waterproof, (and I think) lighter, stronger. Probably cheaper. If you already have a large piece of silk, don't waterproof it, make it into a sleeping bag liner, or lightweight shirt / pants (skirt) Pillow case, bandanna, etc.



Just my $0.02.


Doctari.

...This is probably a really dumb idea... You said it. :D What is your objective?

Well, nylon and polyester are horrible, stiff, crackly, sticky fabrics unless they're 'peached' to make them feel soft and wick sweat away from the skin, in which case they're carrying a lot of non structural weight. That might not be so important in temperate climates, but in the tropics synthetics suck big ones. Additionally, they tend to pill and get shiny patches from wear and don't stand up well to extended use. I have a box full of $100+ 'technical' clothing that's about as comfortable to wear as a garbage bag full of fleas, and even worse to look at. My polyester fleeces generally have black pinhole burns from fire sparks within a year. My nylon and polyester shirts and trousers also get the pinhole burns, and pill and get scratchy and shiny. I wouldn't wear any of it in public, and actually threw out about $500 worth of 'technical' clothing last year, since it was ugly, scratchy and generally unwearable.

I still have a canvas pack that seen 15 years of use and is still holding up and looks almost like new. I threw out my 25 year old cordura pack last year becasue it looked like crap, smelled like vomit and I was sick of having to trim threads that had come loose and seal them with a lighter. My cordura Eagle Creek brifcase/backpack thingie saw a lot of use over ten years or so, but looked so sad and beaten that friends were pointing out that I looked like a hobo when carrying it. It went the way of all synthetics - into the bin.

Since I'm thinking about doing some sewing classes and making a hammock, I thought I might whip up a simple day pack as a kind of 'mk I' version. Silk is strong, light as feels good against the skin, and with the addition of a water resistant compound, might actually be quite effective. Prior to the era of polyester leisure suits, silk was the fabric or choice for lightweight applications that required strength and durability. The silk for a 40 litre pack would cost less than $10, so it's not a major expense. If I were to get good enough at sewing to make clothing (or pay someone to do it for me), then silk with a water resistant treatment might make a good softshell windshirt. Considering that I've already wasted thousands of dollars on synthetics that didn't work as claimed and had very brief usable lives, I think it's well worth looking at alternatives.

There are always the aerosol waterproofing treatments, but if I could just use roof sealer dissolved in a solvent, then experimenting would be a lot cheaper.

Typo attack! I really should be more careful, but I've been using the 'quick reply' option so I haven't been previewing my posts - live and learn.

I bought a very nice synthetic dress shirt a couple of years ago. It was light and had a lovely, soft velvety feel to it. The first time I wore it clubbing was also the last. Talk about wicking! I leaned on the bar when I ordered my first drink, and when I moved away most of the sleeves and front of the shirt had sucked the bar dry and was covered in big, dark wet patches which stayed there for the rest of the night. It looked like I had a drinking problem :) Needless to say, it went into the bin next day.

I usually wear very light Indian cotton clothes around town, and I've never owned an item of synthetic clothing (apart from fleeces) that I would wear by choice. In the past I've even taken a set of cotton clothes backpacking in snow country, keeping them in a dry bag so I can change out of my plastic bags when I get to a hut.

Bear in mind that in the tropics, cotton doesn't 'kill', it's actually a comfortable fabric, and the really light Indian cotton dries overnight and lasts quite well. Also, all of the most reputable pack manufacturuers in Australia and New Zealand still use canvas for their mainstream packs, simply because nothing else stands up the conditions and maintains its waterproofness as well. Unfortunately it's heavy - a 40 litre One Planet frameless pack weighs a kilo, which is about double what I consider acceptable. Silk may be a viable alternative - or not. There's only one way to find out.

Here are some links to Aussie and Kiwi pack manufacturers. Notice how heavy the packs are, and that they're mostly canvas. The Kiwis make some 'adventure racing' synthetic models, but they're just that, and wouldn't survive a few years of bush bashing. Admittedly you only have to buy a canvas pack once - they're 'bombproof' and would probably outlast me, but I'm sick of lugging all that weight around. Also, you also won't see many side pockets - mesh or otherwise. They get caught on things and spin the wearer around, and are really quite dangerous on the overgrown, scrubby 'tracks' in this part of the world. After landing on my bum a few dozen times doing the 'side pocket shuffle' I cut them off my old cordura travel pack (since deceased), and I will no longer wear a pack that protrudes past my torso at the sides.

My 65 litre internal framed canvas pack weighs 2 kg (4.4 lbs), has carried 30 kg (66 lb) ten-day loads through snow country with as much comfort as one can expect and it's still waterproof and looks like new after 15 years of hard use. It's far too big and heavy for the tropics though. I'm aiming for 500 grams and 30-40 litres within airline carry-on dimensions.


http://www.mont.com.au/

http://www.oneplanet.com.au/

http://www.wildequipment.com.au/

http://www.macpac.co.nz/

http://www.fairydown.co.nz/ (http://www.fairydown.co.nz/default.asp)

There is a product that is advertised as being able to waterproof natural fabrics, including some silks -- Granger's Wash-In Waterproofing for Natural Fabrics. I have no idea how effective or lasting it is. Googling the product name will produce a long list of sellers.

In the early 1900s, "lightweight" tents and waterproof bags were made of "balloon silk." That name is a misnomer; it refers to a long staple "Egyptian" or "Pima" cotton of 120 threads per inch or better. It was consider lightweight because it was one-fourth the weight of canvas. There seem to have been two waterproofing treatments: (1) paraffin dissolved in mineral spirits and (2) a linseed oil/varnish mixture.

Interesting. I don't think you need to waterproof it for a backpack, though. Just put everything in a garbage bag liner. Waterproof packs generally aren't really waterproof anyway (unless you get a drybag).

For the windshirt, a simple DWR solution might work well enough. There are wash-in and spray-on DWR treatments available at places like Walmart (or whatever similar places you have down under). They're like $3/can, so it's probably worth a try if you just want wind/water resistance and you're not using it as raingear.

Actually canvas packs are as waterproof as you need. Most people don't use drybags or garbage bags unless their lives might depend on it - like if you fall into a river or something in snow country. The care instructions on my canvas pack say that if it starts to lose its waterproofness then just scrub the surface with a stiff brush. That fluffs up the cotton, providing more loose fibres on the surface to swell when wet. I haven't needed to do it yet.

I don't think silk swells when it gets wet, so it would seem that some kind of coating would be the only viable option. Garbage bags won't last well enough, since I intend to live out of a pack for several years while walking and travelling in Asia and South America. A dry bag is kind of pointless - I may as well just attach a harness to one and do away with the pack.

The only reference I could find to oiled silk was that it was silk waterproofed with 'boiled oil', which I presume would be linseed (as mentioned by honu above). Boiled linseed oil dries out and even takes a bit of a polish. I've used it on wood but I doubt that it would even provide adequate water resistance let alone waterproofness. It's worth a try for a backpack though, as is wax and silicone sealant, although I suspect that they would be too icky for clothing. Lots of experimental fun ahead, by the looks of things.

While I was searching I turned up a lot of stuff on spider silk. Apparently it's six times stronger than kevlar weight for weight. The amusing part is that chemical corporations are trying to make an inferior synthetic copy so that they can patent it it make loads of cash. It seems that no one has even considered farming spiders for the real thing - lol.

Well, it sounds like an interesting application. Please post your results back here if you find a workable solution!

if you are living out of it for a while, maybe canvas might be a good option, as a broken pack would be bad news.

I seem to recall a section of "Camping and Woodcraft" by Horace Kephart talking about silk tarps. He talked about how it was good for tarps because the fibers would swell as they got wet and keep water from coming through.... Of course, if you touch the tarp during a rainstorm, the water would come gushing through in that spot....

I seem to recall a section of "Camping and Woodcraft" by Horace Kephart talking about silk tarps. He talked about how it was good for tarps because the fibers would swell as they got wet and keep water from coming through.... Of course, if you touch the tarp during a rainstorm, the water would come gushing through in that spot....
That's encouraging. I wouldn't bother with alternatives for a tarp though. Siliconised nylon or spinnaker fabric is hard to beat for that sort of thing. Anything that isn't touched and handled for extended periods is better served by synthetics, I think.

What messes up the weights of canvas packs is the 'features' that they stack them with to drive up the price. One Planet has a good reputation for durable packs, but their foray into lightweight gear is actually quite funny. Their WBA model is billed as "One Planet's answer to the lightweight revolution" and uses 6 oz canvas instead of the usual 12 oz. Funnily enough, it weighs the same as my 15 year old 12 oz canvas pack that holds 5 litres more. The difference seems to be in the harnesses, which have become inceasingly elaborate in recent years, with moulded parts and sliding adjustable doohickeys. They've become so myopic that they're utterly unable to keep it simple.

While I don't doubt that some of the latest ultralight packs available in the US are a little lacking in durability for applications where they're used for extended periods, the designers at least grasp the benefits of simplicity, particularly with regard to the harness.

I've tried emailing One Planet to see if they would be willing to make one of their 40 litre 'Grampian' packs out of their 6 oz canvas rather than the 12 oz, but I've heard nothing back. In fact, over the past couple of months I've emailed around two dozen equipment manufacturers and only had a reply from one of them.

Those are good points...the canvas packs I have come with zippers, pen pockets, etc. Surely a plain old rucksack would be lighter.

The sil packs here aren't as durable as canvas ones, but they're not marketed that way, either. They're good for what they're designed for, but that doesn't sound like it fits your needs. But like you said, they usually have simple shoulder straps (the ones people on this site generally use, anyway).

Aramis,

You ask about waterproofing silk, mentioning using silk for clothing. You don’t like nylon and polyester clothes because sparks readily burn through them, and you don’t like their feel, sound, weight, and appearance after they have been used a while. You specifically consider treating a windshirt for water resistance.

Let me point out, in the gentlest way, a windshirt is NOT, by definition, a rainshirt. When you successfully treat a windshirt for water resistance, you’ve just created a rainshirt. Rain resistant fabric doesn’t breathe as well as wind resistant fabric, contrary to marketing hype.

I don’t know anything about silk other than what I have experienced from silk scarves, which seem to be inherently windproof. Heavier weight silks are more windproof than lighter weight silks.

In winter, I religiously carry a large heavyweight silk scarf. I can keep my heating and cooling cycles about right for hiking - hiking up hill causes me to mildly overheat, hiking level or down hill cause me to cool a bit too much - by keeping a scarf about my neck to compensate for perceived changes in temperature. Up hill, the scarf hangs loosely about my shoulders and, in the back, on the top of my pack. When I cool, I draw the scarf more closely about my neck. When wind makes me cold, I draw the scarf up to cover my head while continuing to keep my neck and shoulders covered. I make all needed adjustments on the fly, not needing to stop or fish about my pack for clothes to compensate for my changing perceptions. I also carry a fairly large wool scarf to augment the silk scarf at lower temperatures. I can hike comfortably at 20 degrees, Fahrenheit, with the usual ridge line breezes, using the two scarves over a silk weight (polypropylene) short sleeve shirt while wearing shorts. A very light weight nylon wind parka from Patagonia covers everything when there is high wind velocity. In summer, a small silk scarf substitutes for the two scarves. A sil-nylon poncho keeps rain off me and yet provides good ventilation.

You appreciate the durability of canvas packs, but regret new designs include so many add-ons the weight becomes prohibitive. In the army, we used surplus WWII canvas rucksacks which never broke. I think all the Allied armies used the same pack. I managed to harm one, since then, carrying a chain saw and attendant maintenance equipment. I have seen these for sale, CHEAP. Surplus canvas German army and NATO rucksacks are more attractive, probably a bit heavier, but should work even better. The last I knew, they were available all over the place.

Parachute silk used to be made of silk, but then there was a falling out with the Japanese Government, which eliminated the availability of silk, and parachute “silk” became nylon.

I have used a silk scarf as protection from rain in unexpected showers and it worked quite well. The scarf became wet, I became damp.

Correction:

Quoting myself, in Post #10, "I can hike comfortably at 20 degrees, Fahrenheit, with the usual ridge line breezes, using the two scarves over a silk weight (polypropylene) short sleeve shirt while wearing shorts."

Addition:

I also wear a button-up front wool shirt over the silk weight (polypropylene) short sleeve shirt.

Sorry I left that out. I got cold just reading that.