Hi there folks, i recently bought an army dpm waterproof smock off ebay, figuring it would make a good cheap waterproof for walking in, of course being an ebay item it wasnt all it was cracked up to be..
The problem is the waterproof tape has all come away from the inside of the hood and upper areas of the jacket, i have no idea what products to use to fix this, or is it a foolish exercise if the tape has already come away?
Will duct tape do? Or a is it a case of getting a specialist hi-tek super tape i know nothing about..
also, does anyone rate the army 'gore-tex' smocks? I'm operating on a budget so cannot afford to shell out unfortunately.
"shell out " shell out, geddit, waterproof shell jacket? no? never mind....
ok, as its a breathable jacket, using duct tape won't help the breathability of the jacket.
you might be best off going to a shop and getting some seam-seal tape, like used on tents. again, its not breathable, but should adhere to the gore-tex for longer. should only cost 3 to 5 quid.
You can buy iron-on seam seal tape, at about £1/m, from Point North
You'll need to remove the existing tape completely first; probably warm iron with brown paper to protect iron & garment, and peel tape off. Put new tape on in reverse fashion. This assumes that you have a three-layer Gore-Tex jacket. If tape is peeling from a PU coated fabric, it probably means the PU coating is shot anyway... Since it's a smock, I'd guess it's PU, not Gore-Tex.
Does anyone rate them? Well, my nearly-ex-husband was in the army for a LONG time and he still uses the DPM goretex smock he had about the time of the Falklands I think. Last year we got him a black one as well.
I use army DMP goretex trousers as my waterproofs - £20 on Ebay, can't complain :)
Clear Bostick will stick seam tape back (as long as you still have the tape). Naturally this bit will not be breathable but the rest of the garment will be.
I've found that sometimes fixing this problem is just not worth the hassle although I have tried before. Think I found a company which made a large variety of tape, waterproof and other random varieties like Tamper Proof Tape. I may look them up again.
I'm not really a big fan of dpm, I am not trying to hide from anyone, in fact I would like to be found if something goes wrong, but yeh gortex jackets are very good.
I don't know if repairing it yourself is a brilliant idea, you may or may not do a good job, but it won't be as good as the original, and will keep breaking, I would get a new jacket. Waterproof/windproof, removable layers and your sorted. They dont even have to cost that much is you search around.
