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  1. #1
    Senior Member jeffjenn's Avatar
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    Does your down have feathers....

    For those that have used/seen bulk goose down. Does all down have some amount of feathers? If not at what point/fill rating does it stop? If anyone would, please post some pics with details of the down, i.e. fill rating & where from. I know this seems like a strange request, but my hopes are to help myself & others understand good quality down from not so good. And what to expect when a bag of it arrives at our door.

    Thanks, Jeff
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  2. #2
    Senior Member Cannibal's Avatar
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    It all has feathers, but the higher f.p. you go the less you see and the ones you do see are progressively smaller.
    Trust nobody!

  3. #3
    Senior Member Pitch's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cannibal View Post
    It all has feathers, but the higher f.p. you go the less you see and the ones you do see are progressively smaller.
    I am no expert on this and am only conveying information I read somewhere...

    The feathers, allegedly, help in high-compression environments such as underneath you (bottom of a sleeping bag) since they do not compress as easily as down itself and thereby allow the down to do its job.

    That said, I know super-cheap down products contain a high percentage of feathers which can be very uncomfortable....

    YMMV

  4. #4
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    I've been working recently with both the Speer 900fp down and the Thru-Hiker 800+ down. The feathers in the Speer stuff are very small, soft, and infrequent. Thru-Hiker down has a noticeable amount of feathers in it. I've pulled out a few with shafts of two or three inches. I stuff stuff by hand, not with the vacuum method, so it's very easy for me to pull the big feathers out. I think by doing so, I'm effectively increasing the fill power. Neither option is bad at all, but the difference in the amount of shafted feathers was notable.

    The Thru-Hiker 3 oz. bag actually contained 3.3 ounces, so I don't feel like I wasted any money on feathers.
    .. truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. - Herman Melville

  5. #5
    Senior Member animalcontrol's Avatar
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    I have only seen the Thru Hiker 800+ down, but I noticed a few feathers.
    I have no other point of reference for feather size nor frequency...just there are some
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  6. #6
    Senior Member TeeDee's Avatar
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    I have only used the Speer 900 fp down.

    Any feathers are not noticeable by me or anyone here. Any feathers were indistinguishable from down.
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  7. #7
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    i've used both 800 and 850 and have never seen large 2-3" feathers like described above, just tiny ones

  8. #8
    MacEntyre's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by warbonnetguy View Post
    i've used both 800 and 850 and have never seen large 2-3" feathers like described above, just tiny ones
    A nearly 2" feather found it's way out of my brand new Speer PeaPod last week. I figure that kind of escapee comes with the territory. They certainly aren't all like that!

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  9. #9
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    they certainly shouldn't be common in 800+

  10. #10
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    Jeff asked for some photos. I don't have any Speer down that I'm working with right now, but am playing with some Thru-Hiker 800+. The first photo is a photo of a pile of the down. You can see some soft two-dimensional breast feathers, but nothing big. The second photo is my pile of big feathers left over from a 3+oz. bag. There aren't very many, and they're big and obvious. There were also a number of hard feather stalks that I removed for comfort reasons.

    I really don't want to put down T-H down. It's good stuff and I'll order more from either AYCE or Ed, depending on what else I need in the same shipment.
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    .. truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. - Herman Melville

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