What do you think your total costs were to make that UQ?
What do you think your total costs were to make that UQ?
total, including shipping, plus a few other unrelated misc. items that i ordered with the materials was less than $75. not entirely sure, but i think the misc stuff made up about $10 of the order plus increased shipping cost. i also ordered a little too much of the primaloft. i have some left over (thinking about trying my hand at a pillow). i think if you go with a single sheet of the 6oz instead of doubling up the 3oz and the 4oz and order closer to the actual amount you need, you could probably make the whole thing for $50-60 including shipping. hope this helps.
I managed to make it to Burrells Ford last night and got to try it out. We didn't get there till almost 9:30 so i had to set it up for the first time in the dark. took a good bit of fiddling to get it right. at first i really thought it was a failure because i froze till about 2am. weather.com said the temp got down to around 32 degrees. after some frustration i got up and fiddled some more and i don't know exactly what i did, but i got it right. my back was toasty the rest of the night. i'm gonna have to make a top quilt to go with it though. my feet froze in my sleeping bag, even after i got the quilt hung right. oh well, another DIY project (my wife doesn't know what a mess she got herself into when she let me make the first one). i had my wife snap a few picks before i got out this morning. looks like the quilt is hanging weird in the pics because i was experimenting with placement when she took them. i think i'm going to have to set it up during the day one afternoon and play around till i figure how to dial it in just right.
Looks even better hanging.
Do you think you'll be able get it figured out and survive a 30degree night, comfortably?
Would you do anything differently or is it still too soon to tell?
(Making my own PLUQ soon)
Last edited by fosho4; 10-23-2011 at 02:09.
thanks. i was pretty comfortable as far as the UQ goes. it was my sleeping bag that was terrible. my back was toasty, my front not so much. As far as doing things differently, i think next time i would do a differential cut with pleats in the different layers to give it a little more room to loft when it is hanging. i intended to do this, but i forgot the pleats until it was too late to go back. my outer layer is 2 inches wider than the inner, not sure how effective that was though because i realized the next morning that i had it upside down so my outer layer was next to me and it was a little more compressed than it was supposed to be.
i've also thought about putting some sort of liner on the inside of it because when you first lay down, the ripstop feels really cold until your body heat warms it up. i don't really know how effective that would be though because i'd still have the ripstop of the hammock next to me. mostly, it would just let me know which side is the top and which is the bottom. in the dark it was hard to tell just by looking at it when both sides were the same color, which resulted in it being wrong side up.
i think with it hanging right, and a good top quilt, i could comfortably get down even into the 20's. like i said before, my back was toasty at 32 degrees, just my front and my feet that froze.
Good luck on your UQ. DIY projects are fun (and a bit addicting)
As crazy as it sounds, on one of my hangs, it was just my toes that were freezing no matter what I did. On the second night, which was colder, I wrapped paper towels around my toes (remembering what my Grandpa had told me about paper in shoes was quite an insulator), put my socks on over the paper towels and they were nice and warm all night.
if your feet are cold you need to put a pad under your feet...
a sleepingbag/quilt will not kep your feet warm in cold weather without something under it ...don't forget your feet crush the insulation
It puts the Underquilt on it's hammock ... It does this whenever it gets cold
i actually cut up a pad for this purpose...but in my brilliance, i left it at home. not a mistake i ever intend to repeat. i'm thinking now about taking my sleeping bag and cutting it down, opening it up and inserting a layer of primaloft and then sewing it back together to make a top quilt. should be way cheaper than starting from scratch.
I like it!
I slept in my IX Underquilt - DIY at Red River Gorge, KY this weekend when it hit 34F and frost. I had a Kelty 40F light down sleeping bag for my TQ.
I know you said when the pictures were taken you were still fiddling with the setup but to my untrained eyes it looks a bit low, maybe that's what you adjusted. Fresh on my mind is this weekend and my UQ was even with the top edges of my Eno Single and covered my shoulders. I think it is approx. 40+inches wide. I attached the UQ via prusik knot about 6" up from each end of the hammock.
Anyway I remember my backside getting chilly probably around 5-7am? But other than that it worked out ok. Glad yours did also!
Oh yeah I had a 2'x3' blue pad thing for my feet.
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