As recommended on The First 40 Miles podcast, we bring you Nicwax Solarproof:
It's advertised as a water repellent and solar-proofing spray, and it gets good general recommendations from hikers and reviewers. Interesting part is that the instructions say to wet the fabric before applying, and that really does seem to be key to getting this stuff to wick around and into the individual threads.
On the new backpacking tent the fly was still reasonably waterproof, so even dunking it into a bucket of water didn't do a lot. However the old 2-man tent was a different story. The fly must've soaked up a gallon of water, and it greedily soaked up the Nicwax too. No wonder it wasn't doing such a great job in heavy rain anymore! They're both out in the yard drying right now. Just did the rain flys, no need to do any of the covered parts.
Protip: wear some kind of wet-proof gloves, rubber or nitryl or similar. When you wipe off the excess (and use a cloth you'll throw away), you're going to get it all over your hands and by intention and chemical engineering this stuff doesn't want to wash off. It's not horrible, but... I wish I'd though of this ahead of time.
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