Gear Trade

You just bought a used tent from a garage sale or online marketplace, and the seller swore it's never leaked. But here's the problem: tent waterproofing breaks down over time, and most sellers have no idea their tent actually fails in rain. The seam tape peels off, the coating flakes away, and you won't know until you're soaked at 2 AM in the backcountry. You need to test it now, not during a storm. What Actually Makes a Tent Waterproof? Tents stay dry because of two main things: the fabric coating and the seam tape. The fabric itself gets treated with polyurethane (PU) or silicone coating that stops water from soaking through. Most tent fabrics have a waterproof rating measured in millimeters—typically 1,500mm to 3,000mm for the floor and 1,200mm to 2,000mm for the walls and roof. But the fabric coating isn't your main concern when buying used. The seams are where tents leak first. Every seam is a line of needle holes where the fabric pieces connect. Manufacturers...

You're halfway up a trail when you hear that sickening rip. Your pack lurches backward, and suddenly you're carrying 30 pounds with nothing but shoulder straps.  Load lifter failures happen more often than you'd think, especially in used daypacks where previous owners might have pushed the limits. The scary part? Most failures give zero warning before they go. What Makes Load Lifters Actually Fail? Load lifter straps connect at the top of your pack and angle up to your shoulders. They transfer weight from your shoulders to your upper back. When the anchor points fail, you lose that transfer system completely. The anchor point is where the webbing attaches to the pack body. This spot takes constant stress every time you adjust the straps or shift your weight. In used packs, you're dealing with materials that have already been stressed thousands of times. Most failures happen at three spots: where the webbing meets the bartack stitching, where the stitching penetrates t...