I posted this over at the Aus bush walking forums and thought I'd post here as well.

I have a Bibler Juniper tent bought in 2003. This is a 3 man 3 season single skin tent made of Toddtex and coated nylon, coated on the inside. I guess it's about 50% Toddtex and 50% nylon. I'm pretty sure the nylon parts of the tent are what's called polyurethane coated nylon. I bought it mainly for car camping and family type trips but it hasn't had a lot of use. It was quite an expensive tent, around $1000 here in Aus.

It hadn't been used for a few years and when I pulled it out the other day the coated nylon parts of the tent were sticky on the inside, quite sticky but nowhere near to the point of sticking together, no smell either. There is no stickiness on the outside of the nylon. I set up the tent and put the hose on it for a while and it didn't leak so the coating seems to be still doing its job. There are no pole sleeves in this tent, just plastic clips to hold the poles in place. The poles became a little sticky where they came in contact with the nylon, some of the coating rubbing off onto the poles. The tent was not stored wet and there is no mildew but it was stored in it's stuff sack for a few years without being pulled out. I now know this is not good practise, particularly in hot/humid Brisbane, Australia. The Toddtex is a great material, and it still looks like the day I bought it.

I'd rather not ditch the tent as I hope to be using it quite a bit from now on. I usually hike solo with my 2003 circa macpac microlight, but my wife has decided to get more involved so I see the Juniper getting a bit more use. The Juniper is a very expensive tent so I'd like to resurrect it if possible. I stored my microlight the same way, in it's stuff sack and it doesn't have this problem, although that tent did get a lot more use. I'll be storing my tents loosely in large drawstring calico bags from now on.

I've seen a few suggestions around, like using talcum powder, but that seems only a short term fix and not all that successful. Another suggestion was to iron it on a coolish setting (with paper in between) to harden the coating and drive out the moisture. I've tried this but it didn't seem to make a lot of difference, maybe I didn't do it for long enough, but the nylon was getting a bit hot and I didn't want to melt it. Another suggestion was to recoat using diluted silicon (UV resistant silicon mixed with mineral turps). One of the spray-on silicons (ATSKO Silicone Water Guard) might also be appropriate, I'm just not sure.

The nylon is not uniformly sticky, some parts are stickier then others. On the parts that are quite sticky if I rub it the coating does rub off. When researching a fix for this problem I came across a lot of cases where the nylon was actually sticking together quite badly, I'm nowhere near that stage but the stickiness definitely needs to be addressed.

I'm thinking the best solution might be to hand wash the tent and try to remove as much of the existing PU coating as possible, then recoat the nylon with something like Mcnett TentSure, probably on the outside, I'm not sure. Would I need to remove the existing PU coating or can TentSure be applied straight over the top of existing stickiness?

The floor of the tent is only very very slightly sticky but the tape seams have started to lift in a few spots, easily fixed I believe.

I'm open to any further suggestions and the best way to go about this. I will post pics if you think it will help. Ditching the tent is a solution but that is very much the last resort. Other then the stickiness the tent is in pristine condition.