New concept for an UQ--air pocket?

[jordo_99]

So, I have no idea how well this would work yet but I wanted to throw it out there to see what people think:

Take a look at the picture I'm attaching and that will make it a lot easier to describe what's in my head:

The idea is that you have an air pocket that gets pressed up against the hammock. Then a perimeter of down filled-baffles, and karo-style baffles underneath, to insulate it.

Specifically, I would use karo baffles as they seem to be the best at eliminating down shifting completely (which would be this concept's kryptonite).


So, what's the constructive criticism you can offer?

I'm thinking that the benefits of this concept would be:
- Light weight (removing 33% of the down, which makes up most of the weight already)
- Versatility (you could put the air pocket on the outside and eliminate it's insulation for warmer nights--giving you a 2" karo UQ)

And the cons:
- If down shifts at all it will cool the entire air pocket and you'll be cold...you would have to be very careful when making the quilt to avoid this.


So, what does everyone think? Is this viable at all?

[pgibson]

Not to burst your bubble but we already have this...it's called a quilt that is not fitted to the hammock properly. The air is slow to heat up on its own, does not stay warm well and generally leaves the user colder than if the quilt does not have any space between the user and the insulation. Many folks have exspecialy fed a cold night with their quilt drooping ever so slightly away from the bottom of the hammock while the perimiter edge is holding in place well.

As well the Karo style quilt does not really prevent all down shifting it allows for down shifting so that you can move down around in the quilt to where you want it most. Say your feet or core gets cold...a few pats or a little shake and you have moved some of the volume of down from one area to another.

Great work thinking outside the box, keep it up. That's how new ideas work. Unfortunatly air on its own is not a great insulator and heat readily passes through. Down or other insulations are used to slow this transfer of heat.

[gmcttr]

Not to burst your bubble but we already have this...it's called a quilt that is not fitted to the hammock properly...

As I tried to explain in the "overstuffed/unstuffed" thread.

...Versatility (you could put the air pocket on the outside and eliminate it's insulation for warmer nights--giving you a 2" karo UQ)...

This would not work either. The inner and outer shells have to be differential cut in order to maintain loft when wrapped around the hammock. When you reverse the UQ and attempt to snug it up to the hammock, the smaller "inner" shell (now on the outside) would compress the down and lose most of it's insulation value.

[jordo_99]

Ah...i had totally forgotten about the differential cut not working on the other side...duh

That was pretty much the whole point to this design...A flippable quilt would be able to be done using a different baffling/shell system but without good reason for that feature it's just a waste of added fabric.

[MtneerInTN]

If you want to make a flippable/reversible uq for multiple temp ranges why not use a design similar to the North Face MERCURIAL LINER BAG

http://www.thenorthface.com/catalog/...ml?from=subCat

[gargoyle]

Airtight would also mean non-breathable.

Heres a vid from fellow member FourDog. It shows a Exped air mattress with down filling.
Kinda like what your talking about.
Here.