I have an old Eddie Bauer messenger bag. It's seen a lot of use over the years and has held up well structurally. But the coating used on the lining inside the bag for many of the pockets is flaking off. It appears to be some type of coated ripstop nylon. Anything that gets carried in the bag ends up with small specks of this material on it. Not a huge deal, but I'd rather not have this get on/in my laptop and other electronics. You can see where material has flaked off here. Looking at this pic, it seems that what is coming off is a coating of some sort. Anything I can do to prevent this short of carrying everything in a sleeve?
I have the same problem on my North Face backpack, only the lining is almost completely gone at this stage.
machine - wash it (cool water) turned inside out two or three times - solved similar problems with some of my older backpacks. the coating comes off slowly, but if the overall integrity of the bag is OK, it won´t affect the performance. just buy ziplock bags for bigger items you want to waterproof.
I hae the same problem with my Eastpak, and since I'm a student most of the time, I have to carry books or my notes, and I keep finding flakes of this stuff between the pages and it's really annoying... Not sure if it's covered by their warranty
it did so on 2 of my backpacks (and a computer bag AFAIR ). one of those "prewashed" BPs was with me on a trip around ireland. i just had to put my things in plastic bags to keep them dry, everything else was just like always. therefore i can recommend this treatment to prolong the "lifespan" of a bag - if you can live with the "ziplock-waterproofing-system"
Thanks, I'll give it a shot. Nothing to lose really, because with the slow deterioration of the coating, I'll be looking at months and years of this stuff getting onto everything I put in the bag, and I'd eventually lose patience with that and buy another bag.
I was nervous about tossing the bag in the washing machine, so I dunked it in a bucket of water and started rubbing the coating with my fingers. It came off in large flakes: When the bag was dry, rubbing with my fingers or just movement from items inserted and carried in the bag would remove very tiny pieces, so submerging in water is much faster. I got most of it off the largest compartments (very easy to tell by feel when it's gone and just leaves smooth nylon underneath), but it was too difficult to get into the many small pockets, so I tossed it in the washing machine. Still some dislodged flakes in the bag, but that will be easy to vacuum up. Hopefully 99% of the coating is gone. Will have to check once the bag is dry. Will have to oil the leather bits as well.
The bag actually looks better after the wash. I guess removing many years of accumulated dirt will do that. Even the water stains on the leather were removed. There's still a bit of flaked off coating in the bag which I'll have to vacuum out. And it make require a couple of more washes to loosen and remove any remaining coating, but I think I've got well over 90% of it out on the first pass.
