How to Maintain Your Tipi

Washing Your Tipi.

When a storm, or whatever dirty, dusty event you've most recently attended. Your Tipi, once white as snow, now bears soil samples from every place it's been pitched.

An afternoon of soap, water, and elbow grease can make your tipi look years younger, and if done correctly, can add years of life to it. This is because when dirt gets into the weave of the cloth, the gritty particles actually wear into the threads, chafing them and weakening them, resulting in premature failure of the cloth.

Your tipi canvas has had some treatment for water-repellency, and possibly for fire-retardance and mildew resistance as well. Most of what follows applies to other fabric as well, although you might want to test the methods on some inconspicuous part of the tipi, particularly if you think that the colorfastness of your tent might be in doubt.

The trick to washing canvas is to float the dirt and debris away from the fabric instead of grinding it into the fabric's weave.

The best procedure is to apply a light spray to wet the fabric, follow this wetting with a soap application to encapsulate all the tiny bits of dirt and float them off the cloth, and finish the job with a thorough rinse at somewhat higher water pressure to eliminate all traces of the soap solution