Equipment maintenance
When you’ve invested in our gear you should also know how to look after it properly, to make sure your expensive gear works to its fullest. These instructions apply to most of our load carrying type of gear, tents are a bit different and maintenance instructions for them are included in their respective user manuals.
Regular maintenance
Cleaning
After each use you should clean off any mud and dirt from your gear. Commonly a thorough brushing is enough, but sometimes you may need to give it a go with a bit of water. If needed, use cold tap water and a brush or cloth to wipe off tough stains. Clean dirty buckles and zippers with extra care, as these are delicate components. Mud, dirt and sand can over time work on the materials like sandpaper, eating away at the fibres and threads. Dirt also retains moisture, which leads us to our next maintenance step.
Drying
When you’re done cleaning your gear you’re not done yet! Dry it out in room temperature to get rid of any moisture before putting it away for storage. Never store your gear wet, this will cause all sorts of trouble, mold and degradation of coatings, rust on steel parts etc. After your gear is all clean and dry you can then pack it away until your next adventure.
Do not tumble dry your gear! The heat can degrade coatings and cause shrinkage.
Washing
Washing should first and foremost be done by hand with plain, lukewarm water. If you have trouble getting stains out you can use mild soaps, but we don’t recommend using any stronger detergents since they may degrade fabric coatings.
Do not machine wash your gear. This puts unnecessary stress on the materials and is especially bad for coatings and can cause shrinkage. Your gear will get dirty and worn, that’s unavoidable, but you can easily avoid unnecessary problems caused by improper washing.
Long term maintenance
From time to time, it’s good to check up on your gear. Go through them and check if there are any tears, holes, damaged buckles or such. The earlier you notice this type of wear the better, as you can do something about it.
Damaged buckles are most often easy to replace with suitable repair buckles, and we offer a wide range of spare buckles for this.
Zippers can be maintained by applying regular silicone oil to them to keep the plastic spiral teeth lubricated. The best way to do this is to spray some silicone oil onto a small piece of cloth and then wiping this onto the zipper. If you go spraying the zipper directly, you will get oil stains on the fabric, and that will not go away.
Closing words
In the end our gear is very easy to maintain, just not fully maintenance free. Following these instructions will get you a long way.
And remember: if you have any questions, please contact us. We’re here to help.
