So my sister's dog has developed a taste for polyester batting & attacked her big ol' Coleman sleeping bag to get at the stuff. The damage is only to the outer shell & can be covered by a 12" x 16" rectangle. She got one final weekend in the bag after I used safety pins & a folded up pillowcase to cover the damage. My "fix" worked to keep the batting inside but she bought a new bag anyway stating that the old one "just looks too ghetto". Anyways, I now have a big piece of slightly used insulation to turn into an underquilt. When unzipped, it looks roughly like this:
My first thought (lets call it Plan A) was to cut out the biggest usable rectangle (around 72x50"), edge it up with grosgrain, & run shock cord through the grosgrain channels. Done, full length UQ that only goes car camping.
Since I already have a stockpile of shockcord & grosgrain this would basically be a free piece of gear. What is better than a free piece of gear? Well, two pieces of free gear of course! Here's another sketch (Plan B) where I might try to get a much smaller UQ with a matching TQ:
Now, this presents at least two challenges. First, the new UQ is far smaller & might not be sufficient. Second, the TQ will be very narrow near the foot end, with simply not enough sleeping bag to make a footbox.
To deal with these two challenges, I'm thinking of adding a pad pocket to complete the bottom side of the TQ's footbox. (see purple wedge thingy below)
The purple piece would be 2 layers of ripstop or fleece & would hold a wedge of closed cell foam, hopefully picking up where the smaller UQ left off.
So what do you all think? I would much rather try Plan B if the DIY experts think it could work.
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Originally Posted by BrianWillan
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