Make your own outdoor waterproof fabric

Now that I have finished my outdoor patio sofa I want to upholster in a navy bull denim. The only problem is that bull denim isn't waterproof, or stainproof for that matter. I still have some Rust-Oleum Never Wet left over from my breakfast table project and decided to conduct a test to see if it would waterproof fabric...

 

When I used Rust-Oleum Never Wet for the cushions for my breakfast table project I mentioned that the fabric was a bit chalky after application. Bearing this in mind I wanted to test to see if the product would still work if applied to the back of the fabric... and it did!

I applied Rust-Oleum Never Wet according to the instructions - but on the back of a piece of scrap fabric. After application I turned the fabric over (right side out) and poured water onto the fabric, even going so far as to rub the water over the surface.

The water droplets easily ran off the fabric leaving the dry. Below you can see the other side of the fabric, which shows absolutely no wet spots, although the fabric did feel a bit dampish.

 

 

For the second test I poured guava juice onto the fabric. Since this test is to determine whether or not I can make bull denim waterproof, I might as well do a test to see how it performs if someone spills drinks onto the fabric.

The sticky juice didn't completely run off when I tipped the fabric into the sink - a small amount of juice was left on the surface.

To remove the remaining juice I used a damp sponge to wipe away. Below you can see how easy it was to remove the guava juice left on the fabric. Again, there was a slight damp spot but absolutely no stain.

There was no trickery involved with the project and I am confident enough to test on the bull denim that will be used to upholster the foam cushions for my outdoor patio sofa. I would advise that you do a similar spot test on any fabric before you apply Rust-Oleum Never Wet over the entire back side of your fabric.