Loft and baffle design for a ~40F TQ?

I've got the material and the down for a new UQ to replace my rather heavy 45F (try 50F) mummy bag. I'm still debating on the design though.

My UQ has about 2.5" of loft on average, and uses polyester mesh for 'wall' type baffles every 4.5" or so. The result is very good, and it seems extremely warm and durable, but it was a real pain in the hind parts to assemble the thing.

Looking at a lot of the 40-50F down bags like the Lafuma 600, it seems most don't use real baffles, and instead just sew the inner and outer liners together to form tubes with stitching sewn all the way through the bag. This would be a simpler construction method, but it seems like it would also pretty significantly de-rate the bag, yes?

Are there simpler baffle designs that don't radically increase weight, but don't require so much pinning and sewing (two seams the length of the bag per baffle, 15ish baffles).

Also, how much loft should be a rough starting point to get to 40F or so comfortably? I'm a pretty warm sleeper. The 2.5" on my UQ was almost too warm at 55F last week, so I'm optimistic about its performance on the low end, and I'm leaning toward sticking with those dimensions.

Maybe the KARO Box technique........http://www.hammockforums.net/forum/s...ght=karo+quilt
Shug

I would seriously advise against a seen through quilt. They are very difficult compared to any baffled design. A top quilt done in the same fashion as the UQ you made will work perfectly fine. Since a 40 degree quilt is relatively thin, I would recommend the Karo step method to reduce the amount of baffle required. It's not easier not harder in my opinion.

Here's a link to my 40 degree quilt the I made in the Karo step style. It's 1.6" thick and keeps me nice and warm at 40 degrees.
http://www.hammockforums.net/forum/s...ad.php?t=39994

And here's a picture of the finished quilt. There are other pictures of it under construction in my gallery.
http://www.hammockforums.net/gallery...imageuser=3295

Thanks for the suggestion Shug! The quilts look great, but as a couple of other guys pointed out, I don't quite grasp how in the world you sew those baffles to the second part of the shell. Seems like the first half would be trivial though.

I'm looking around for the lightest possible no-seeum or similar mesh. If I can find something appreciably lighter than the fairly heavy stuff I have now, I might just go with a really simple triangle baffle design. It won't be quite as light, but it might be a good option for a summer weight quilt.

Whoops, MAD77, you snuck in while I was typing. Your quilt looks great! I'm going to shoot for about 2" of loft I think, just for a little extra.

Once you have the karo quilt constructed, how much do you have to fool around with the down to prevent cold spots over time? It seems like it's pretty free to move around in there.