How To Make Your Wrenchmonkees Garments Waterproof Using Fjällräven's Greenland Wax

How To Make Your Wrenchmonkees Garments Waterproof Using Fjällräven’s Greenland Wax

Posted March 26, 2014

All WM A.C garment are built for life on the road.To help you stay warm and dry while wearing your garments when you’re riding your bike, we recommend that you impregnate the fabric to make it water repellant by waxing it.To learn from an expert, we visited Micke Fält, creator of Malmo-based accessory brand ROOKTOWN, who has been riding motorcycles for more than 20 years, and has extensive experience waxing twill and canvas fabrics.

Before You Start Waxing:To get the best results from impregnating your WM A.C garment, Micke recommends that you wash it before you starts wearing and waxing it. The fabric will become softer and the wax will be easier to apply. The MC Jacket Micke test waxed was machine washed at 40°C and tumble dried.

What You Need:

Heat gun or blow drier
Fjällräven Greenland Wax
WM A.C garment

Micke prefers to use a heat gun.

It melts the wax at higher temperatures compared to a blow drier. In his experience using a heat gun yields the best results as the wax is better absorbed into the fabric. You don’t need a high-end professional heat gun – you can buy one cheaply at your local go-to DIY store.

Micke also prefers Fjällräven’s Greenland Wax.It’s tough, fairly cheap (around DKK100/€15 for a big bar), and lasts a long time – up to 4-5 treatments per bar. He has also experimented with the Otter Wax bar, which gives similar results, but the softer wax means the bar only last for 1 treatment. Another alternative is to use fluid wax. Here Micke recommends Barbour’s Thornproof Dressing.

How To Apply the Wax:

Use a completely flat surface with a good working-height
Lay the fabric flat and make sure it doesn’t fold
Start applying the wax in a corner and apply the wax evenly
Make sure to get plenty of wax around the seams
Have patience, it takes time to wax the entire jacket – expect at least 30 minutes to apply one layer of wax to the garment
Set the heat gun to around 200°C (around 400°F) and hold it approximately 10-20 cm from the fabric. WARNING: the nozzle of the heat gun gets very hot, so be careful
If you use a regular blow drier, turn it on at maximum heat and hold it very closely to the fabric. Using the blow drier will take longer time to get the wax to melt properly

In this video Micke demonstrates how the Greenland Wax melts into the fabric by using a heat gun set to 200°C.Micke applies wax to the entire garment. However, he often applies an extra layer to the exposed areas of the garment including the front, both sides of the collar, and the sleeves.

Remember the wax will make the fabric less breathable and thus hotter to wear – which can be desirable in colder climates.

After applying the wax the fabric becomes water repellant.The video below shows how water just bounces off the fabric on the right hand panel of the jacket. Note how the water is absorbed to the left hand side of the jacket, which hasn’t been waxed to show the difference.

Have fun waxing your own WM A.C garments!