Any fellow paddlers have a suggestion as to how to effectively remove mold/mildew spots on a yellow nylon sprayskirt and float bags? I don’t wish to use bleach, obviously. I am going to be selling the Pungo and looking at a Caribou S, so I need it to look nice. Whaddaya think? Thanks in advance.
Think you should say…
… it’s all been in storage, the skirt and bags are thrown in “free” (as is, with spots), and you can get new ones from _____.
If you really want to clean it - try someting like oxyclean that doesn’t have chlorine if that’s what you’re trying to avoid. Almost all mildew cleaners seem to have some.
A call for a dehumidifier in your
storage area and hanging you gear loose.
No way to remove mildew fron caoted fabric without destroying it.
If anyone finds one let me know, I’m glad to be wrong.
TNF
Try The North Face website. They offer advice for cleaning mildew from tent floors, and as I remember it involves white vinegar (acetic acid).
Good luck!
Jim
Mildew and Through
I know some graduate students in our art department and they indicated that once mildew sets in to fabric/textile it is ruined. I had some yellow nylon spray skirts and although I used several recommended cleaners the stains remained.
Scott
Try Hydrogen Peroxide
It works on clothing. I owned a dry cleaners back
in the late eighties and that way really the best way. I would just pour it on the spot and use my thumbnail on it, scratching back and forth. If it was really bad I would use a little rust eradicator on top of that. (be prepared for a small reaction, like a bit of smoke) The rust eradicator basically reverses the oxidation that has set in. But that was clothing, not nylon spray skirts, so I can’t say whether or not it might do damage with eradicator.
Jees, I still sound like a dry cleaner
Happy Paddlin
Chuck
That’s correct
Any treatment that kills the mildew only kills the mildew. The real damage is from the coating loosing it’s grip on the fabric.
Jim
Thanks for all the info. Think I’ll try
the Hydro Peroxide and see what happens. Paddle on…
–Steve
Please let us know how it works,
Mold removal
I also posted this as a new topic, in case some folks aren’t following this one.
This is a new thread from the Mold/Mildew question I posed earlier. For the good of us all, I decided to go for broke and see what chemical would remove mold/mildew spotting and stains from yellow nylon float bags/sprayskirts. I discussed it with the flotation bags, and they agreed to be my test subjects.
In strictly controlled conditions (end of the driveway, on a cooler) I tested the following products: Hydrogen Peroxide, Woolite laundry soap, Fabulous (an all purpose cleaner/degreaser), Oxy-Clean liquid, and finally Comet Soft Cleanser with bleach (basically Soft Scrub). Each product was applied, approximately five minutes waited for any change, then thoroughly rinsed off. End result: None of them worked. Nada. Zip. Zero. Bumpkus. Negative, ground control. I then decided to see if any adverse effect was had on the material. I inflated the bags at 3:39pm, placed them in the most climate controlled environment I could find (back of my pickup)and at 7:57pm they were still fully inflated. It appears there was no short term adverse effect, long term we have yet to see.
In summary, after $11.00, an hour of time, we have five tests and five failures. If you get the crud on nylon, its there for good, apparently. Happy moldy paddling…
–Steve