Repair & Maintenance

Maintaining outdoor gear

Maintaining outdoor gear — care and preparation

To give leather boots the longest possible life, it is important to treat them correctly. If you look after them well, you can enjoy your boots for many years.

Tent maintenance

Look after your tent (Helsport).

Maintaining leather boots

To give leather boots the longest possible life, it is important to treat them correctly. If you look after them well, you can enjoy your boots for many years. If you do not, they can dry out and crack early.

Base treatment – with leather grease

When the boots are new, and if they have dried out, we apply a base treatment with leather grease. This has a soft, honey-like consistency. There are different types on the market. The best are beeswax-based or tar-based. Both kinds penetrate well and soften the leather. Be aware that the tar-based grease smells strongly of tar (a campfire smell) and will colour the leather. The beeswax-based grease normally smells sweet and has a golden colour. The leather will always take on a darker colour as the grease soaks in.

Make sure the boots are clean and dry. Take plenty of grease in your hands and work it into the leather with warm hands. If the first round of grease soaks right in, we can apply an extra, thin layer. Let the boot stand for a while to absorb it before you wipe off the excess grease with a cloth or paper towel.

Maintenance treatment – with leather wax

Day to day, we treat the boots with leather wax as needed. This feels firm to the touch in the tin. This is the type you usually find in sports shops. Use your fingers to lift out a little wax. Rub the boot with the wax using your fingers. Be especially thorough with all the seams. It is a good idea to treat the glued seams on the sole as well. Buff to a shine with a dry cloth.

Sleeping bag – storage and maintenance

For your sleeping bag to keep you warm on many trips in the future, it is important to look after it well. Here are some tips on how best to give a sleeping bag a long life:

Airing

Each time you have used the sleeping bag, it should be turned inside out and hung up to air. Ideally this is done after every single night you have used it – also while you are out on a trip. This is to get rid of moisture that has built up in the sleeping bag during the night. If this is allowed to remain, it is easier for bad smells to develop in the sleeping bag.

Storage

Sleeping bags keep best over time if they are stored as little compressed as possible when not in use. This applies especially to down bags, since down is damaged by remaining compressed – but synthetic fill will also lose loft over time if stored compressed.

Most sleeping bags come with a storage bag alongside the compression sack. The sleeping bag usually lies loose and roomy in this. Even better than this is to let the sleeping bag hang at full length, if you have room for it.

Make sure to store the sleeping bag dry, indoors.

Washing

Sleeping bags must be washed eventually, since they take up grease from your body and lose insulating ability. Synthetic sleeping bags are the easiest to wash, and usually go on an ordinary 40-degree wash, with low spin.

Down sleeping bags are washed on a down programme. These should be dried in a tumble dryer on low heat. Add a few tennis balls (balls for this purpose are available from most textile and home-furnishing shops). The balls will tumble around with the sleeping bag and “knock” the down back into place.

Sleeping-bag liner

To give the sleeping bag extra life you can use a sleeping-bag liner. These come in different versions. The cheapest and heaviest are cotton and give little extra warmth. Silk liners give extra warmth and pack small – but cost a lot.

Next steps

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