What I'll show you now, is just two really effective ways to wax your kit in the field.
The first way is just using a normal drinks bottle by boiling up some water, let it cool a little,
and then once it's ready, make sure you wear some thick gloves because it's obviously hot.
Clean any debris off, and we'll just do this backside panel here.
As even as possible, but it's not a science at all. Put it there. Get your bottle.
Then you just take it over the fabric. Yes, I see, it's melting.
That's fantastic. Brilliant, yes. Super quick, very effective.
That's very clever. Interestingly, similar to that,
for a couple of reasons, in the tropics you get these insects that lay their eggs in clothing,
and it's good to iron them. If you don't have an iron, we use a metal mug with hot water. Also,
if you're doing your repair with the duct tape, if you heat it it glows and it stays forever.
Very good. That will be a good way of doing it.
You can also do it while the garment is damp, not soaked.
Very neat. I'm impressed with that. Are there any other ways?
Yes, so the next way. Let's get a smock now, and we'll do part of this shoulder.
I'll put it down here. Here we go. We'll just again wax this area here.
Don, tell me about the wax. Right. The wax it couldn't
be more natural. It's beeswax from southern Sweden. We take that to northern Sweden and
it's processed there. It's the balance we use of natural beeswax and the paraffin oil that
works so well, and we've just refined it over the decades. With this now, what is key is bunching up
so you can comfortably hold it, and that's why it's good to do it really panel by panel.
I'm just going to put that there. I'm going to get our stove, put it safely up here.
Start that there. It got a piezo. Off we go. Turn it up. Get a good nice roar going. Then when I get
the smock, I'm going to make sure I've got a good handle of it. Nothing's going to fall out, so to
speak. I'm going to watch the wax as it melts, and then I'm just at that point to not get any closer.
Off we go. You can see how instant it is. I can smell it. I can smell it.
Are you worried about burning the jacket? No, you won't. You will not. If I keep it
at this height where it's just melting, you will not burn the jacket at all.
That's really neat. It's fantastic, isn't it?
Yes. It's fantastic.
It's an open flame, but I can see where the flame is, I can see where the melt point is.
Don, that's really clever. What are the advantages of the waxing? Is it just about waterproofing?
No, not at all. If you apply the wax, it will give good repellency. Of course,
that's the beauty of it is the more wax you give the garment, the more water repellent it'll be,
but the breathability will come down in the scale a little bit. It's just that wonderful balance
very much up to the end-user is to how much wax you put on, how breathable you want it to be,
It's a really bespoke system. It's really intelligent. It's very basic,
remarkably sustainable, but so effective, so effective.
I think it'd be interesting to try it with a stove and just a metal army mug where we're just heating
the mug. I think that would work really well. Yes, absolutely, I'll give that a go. If you
think about the classic nature of the fabric, there's no other type of fabric you can
do this with. Other fabrics have other advantages. It's brilliant you can adapt it to whatever your
circumstances or needs are. Very clever. Absolutely.