Seasoning Your Snowtrekker Tent
What is seasoning a tent? Do I need to do it? How do I season my tent ? What does seasoning a tent really do? What if I don’t have time to season my tent before my trip?
Hopefully this quick blog will answer all of your questions and shed a little light on how and why canvas tents need to season.
The primary purpose of seasoning your tent is to remove the little bit of shrinkage that is left in the canvas to set the final size of the tent. It also serves to tighten up all of the stitching on the tent and causes the canvas to close around all of the needle holes in the seams, generally just tightening up the moisture resistance of the canvas. Once seasoned your tent will maintain its size for the life of the tent. It is a simple process to either preseason your tent before your trip, or let nature do it for you over a few trips.
Snowtrekker Tents uses Sunforger finishing treatment on all of its canvas and while it does result in a mold, mildew, water resistant and boat shrunk canvas as the final product, it still will have a maximum of a two to three percent shrinkage that occurs in the first few uses. This is a normal and natural occurrence with any natural fiber fabric. You will experience the same thing in any cotton clothing you purchase even if it is pre-shrunk, after its first wash it will shrink just a little more. We do take that into account in all of our frames, so you don’t end up with a frame that is just a bit too big for your tent after a few uses.
Seasoning a tent is a simple process. All it involves is getting the canvas wet and allowing it to dry a few times to allow any remaining shrinkage to happen and the canvas to swell around the thread in all of the canvas seams. There are two methods of doing this, one is to preseason before you head out on your trip, the second is to let your trips season your tent.
What is the best way? Our general rule is that if you have the time, space and the weather is appropriate it doesn’t hurt to get the seasoning done and over with before you head off on your adventure. If you get your tent in the winter, or just don’t have the time or space letting your trips season your tent is perfectly acceptable, it just may take a few outings.
How do you preseason a tent before your trip? It is actually quite easy, get it wet and let it dry a few times. The key is to always remember to be gentle. You want to mimic rainfall when getting the shell of the tent wet. Do not use high pressure hoses, washing machines, or anything of that nature. Sunforger uses a wax based impregnation and when properly cared for retains its properties for a very long time, but it can be removed with high pressure hoses and aggressive treatment. We recommend you set up the tent, making sure it is securely staked out and gently soaking the outside of the shell and letting it air dry several times. Once you have finished those wetting and drying cycles, we recommend you bring the tent indoors and give it a few days to ensure that it is fully dry before you store it away. We cannot stress enough the fact that you should never ever under any circumstances put a tent into storage wet.
If you get your tent in the winter or don’t have the time and space to pre season your tent don’t worry! We have been in that situation ourselves more than once,and in winter we really don’t worry about it at all. Snow is not rain and we have never had any issues taking a new tent into the snowy woods without seasoning it. The process for seasoning a tent by using it is similar to preseasoning a tent. You are just letting the moisture that results in living in your tent, running the stove and drying the tent after your trip do the seasoning. After a few trips and the post trip drying cycle it will be just as seasoned as a preseasoned tent. There have in fact been times even in the summer where the arrival of a tent and the departure of a trip have been a little too close together for us to pre season a tent and we have never worried overly much about our tent not being seasoned. A properly setup and guyed out tent will shed most rainstorms quite well and if we get a few drips during the tents first rain it has never been so much that it causes any problems.
I hope this answers any questions you have about what seasoning a tent is and what it involves. It's not a really complicated procedure, and if you have a canvas tent you have already done this process whether you realized it or not. As always if you have any questions we are just a phone call or an email away and would love to chat with you!
