Chêne Gear | Wader Care

[Music] i'm jeff jones with shin gear and today i want to talk about waiter care and after season waiter care we had some waiters come into the shop today this pair actually belongs to a customer i wore them all season long and then you know contacted us and said hey i wore the waders all season no leaks no problems but i want to send them in let you all look at them go over them see if you see anything that catches your eye or anything that needs to be done to them and that's something that we do so you can contact customer service and say hey i want to send my waders in have you all go over them we'll take them back there in the wait area we'll lay them out we'll go through them make sure we don't see anything really kind of clean them up for you and get them back to you so it is something that we do if you're interested in feel free to contact customer service and send them in to us but today i'm going to go over a few little tips and a couple different things that you can do to the waiter at home on your by yourself that will really extend the life of the waiter first step that you want to do now that season's over and you're getting ready to put all your gear and everything up is to go over the waiter take it to an area either on your patio your driveway anywhere you can do it just lay the waiter out and let's clean it up let's take a water hose let's soak the whole thing down front and back just really get it wet and then take like a mild soap you can take like a dawn dish soap anything like that a simple washcloth any kind of shop rag anything you want to do and go over it and just kind of wipe it down if your wader is really clean you don't have to do that but if it's not if it's got some dirt on it any kind of season or anything like that let's go ahead and do that let's take it wash the front of it down wash the back of it down take that soapy rag really clean the wader up and then rinse all that soap off of it and then take it and hang it to dry you can lay it across the table you can hang it up across a fence you can hang it from a line whatever you got to do just hang it up in the sun let it get good and dry and once it is completely dry you want to come in and you want to get you a bottle of dwr this is from gear aid it's a revive x brand gear aid makes it and sells it they do it a couple different ways this is uh just you know just a handy bottle you do like this this one you can take and it's an aerosol it'll spray on there same ingredients in both both of them work equally well i prefer to use this one uh just kind of what i'm used to doing and this will work for jackets it'll work for anything waterproof or water resistant anything you're wearing out in the elements but it's great for waders take your wader that's completely dry and just spray this stuff on it just squirt it all the way through it you want to get the thing front and back you want to get the wader just pretty well wet with this dwr treatment do the whole thing do the front flip it over do the back and it will really coat on it very well once you've sprayed it again let it dry one more time and once it's dry it's done that dwr will kind of sit there and soak into that very first outer layer of fabric and give you a first line of defense when it comes to waterproofness dwr is really good and it's something that you could use i use it during the season too every couple weeks throughout the season i'll take my waders if it's a sunny day i'll hang them up and i'll spray them just coat them front and back just like that let them dry and then go really go back to hunting in them it's a good product it's something that really helps step two in taking care of the waders and something you really want to focus on is the zipper so the waders come with that aquaseal zipper and that aquaseal zipper is you know just like anything else it kind of attracts dirt and it tracks sand and pebbles and all kinds of little stuff that we encounter when duck hunting and anything that gets in there can cause those teeth to separate and if you get those teeth to separate water is going to come in so we want to stay away from doing that again like i talked earlier gear aid makes some great products they make a zipper cleaner and lubricant it's got a little brush on it just a little tip applicator you take that go onto the top of the zipper squeeze a little bit of it out and just kind of rub it into the zipper i like to do it with the zipper completely closed you can see how much easier it makes the zipper open and then you kind of just take it and same thing just use that brush go through and rub it on the teeth it's like a little gel type liquid that comes out but with that brush on top of it and the stuff that's in it it will really get in there and clean that zipper and plus it makes it just so much easier to function and it does it that gel makes it zipper so much easier to function does it in a way that it's not putting anything in there i've seen people try to use wax before in the past to make their zipper smoother and it will it'll make it smooth when you first apply it but if you if you coat it up with wax and you get a bunch of wax build up in there first time it gets cold that wax will get hard and it'll get solid and it'll turn just like a pebble and it'll get in there and it'll cause those teeth to open up so you want to stay away from wax or anything like that something that's more gel based like this is not going to cause any teeth separation and it's a good way to clean and lubricate the zipper all right step three in taking care of the waders extending the life of them is really focusing on the boots the boots probably get the most punishment the boots being out in the sunlight is the thing that they really hate the most is because it causes them to dry rot things like that oxygen and sunlight never great for rubber but again gear aid makes a product it's a rubber boot treatment it goes on like a shoe polish you just kind of squeeze it push the thumb down it's got a little applicator on it and you just rub it onto the boot all over and what this will do it'll really kind of give that boot life again cleans up that rubber really well kind of coats and protects it and extends the life of it do this to both of them just put it on there super simple to do and it helps once you have a really good clean boot to take it and put it up like that so this is a rubber boot treatment it's made by gear aid under the revive x brand you can put it on the boots really helps take care of them again just give it a little bit of time to dry and you're completely done with taking care of the boots step four and last step and pretty much the most crucial step into extending the life of the waders is how you store them how you're going to store them the entire off-season a lot of people in a lot of camps you have these rubber boot stores waiter hangers is what they're called they would mount on the wall like this and you take the boot and you slide it into it and you hang them upside down you know that's how you store them whether in your garage at your camp or wherever it is they've been around forever the problem is these things crush the ankles of boots not only this boot but really any kind of boot that you put in there if you store it for a long time this way you've crushed that ankle in and when you take them down you go to wear them you've got a weak point they'll get kind of floppy i've seen them i've seen boots hanging like this at camps i've been in before but it really destroys that ankle it makes them super uncomfortable to wear and it breaks that rubber bond down in the boot and it's going to cause leaks these things were a good idea but functionally they just don't last and it doesn't work long we don't recommend using these if you do have them and you don't have any other way to hang your boot you can simply just turn your wader over take it same way they were hanging just put the shoulder straps into each piece instead of the boot and hang them from the shoulder strap that will work these straps don't have any elastic in it nothing's going to stretch out they'll hold and you can securely hang them that way it's a lot better than hanging them by the boot what we what we try to do we recommend to anybody is to kind of hang them how we have them in here basically they're hanging by the shoulder straps the boots are on a a seat or a step and there's no there's no hanging there's no sagging there's nothing going on that's causing any stress on any part of the material that the waiter is made out of that's absolutely the best way that you can store them if you can't do this and you have the opportunity that you can leave them laying flat whether it's underneath a bed in your house or in the closet just kind of stretched out laying them flat is a great way to do it also we just kind of find something like this is a lot more convenient and works for a lot of other people it's a good way to do it what you don't want to do if you do lay them flat or do anything don't leave them folded over and creased you want to stay away from creases anytime you crease them that cause a bend in the fabric and that can cause a leak so stay away from doing that so again best way to store them hang them by the shoulder straps take all the weight and everything off of them and it'll last you a really long time you

Channel: Chêne Gear

Views: 11,291

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Id: Ye9j-nBDNyc

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 11 2022