Posted by Peter Ceresole on October 25, 2008 at 09:46:33 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Oilies posted by John Giddy on October 23, 2008 at 21:44:05:
Their oilskin material is cotton impregnated with paraffin wax. It comes in different weights for different uses.
In Britain, Barbour do the same. I used to wear their motorcycle jackets, which were hugely heavy and tough and once protected me from lacerations when I burst a front tyre at more than 80MPH and slid down the road for ages... Later, I wore the lighter weight ones when I pedal cycled in winter. They were all superbly water proof. They came with a repair kit and instructions; needle and thread and a tin of wax, to be applied and melted in using a hair drier. It really worked, too. But in the end, they all failed round the cuffs- I was jolly hard on them, though.
The later ones, which I bought when we still had winters, are not waxed but have a tough outer fabric and an interlayer of Gortex. If anything, they are better. Certainly better than oilskins for any landlubbery use. But in the SA period, I believe oilies were all there was.