Hybrid Down/Synthetic Underquilt Frankenstein

It's Halloween, so lets talk about a Frankenstein...

I was throwing around the idea of making a hybrid quilt, a part synthetic, part down underquilt. Maybe synthetic at the head and foot, and down in the middle... where most of your body lies...

Or maybe down in the middle and synthetic insulation only around the edges? Keep the down contained in a smaller place... and adding to the compressibility of your synthetic quilt.

One of the reasons might be cost... if you want to shave some cost off of your down quilt. Maybe you just want something a little easier to make...

I don't know the practicality of it, just wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts at all about it.

I like hybrid insulation systems... But would be tempted to use them in a layered fashion, and in separate pieces so they can be used in various combinations. Allowing you to tune your quilt system and warmth to the ambient.

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Originally Posted by Rapt

I like hybrid insulation systems... But would be tempted to use them in a layered fashion, and in separate pieces so they can be used in various combinations. Allowing you to tune your quilt system and warmth to the ambient.

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thats what I was thinking - could use just the down, or just the synthetic, or both combined. withthe right thicknesses you could have a synthetic UQ good for 50-60*, and down good for 30-40*, and a combined system good for <15*

i have thought about opening up a thin, synthetic quilt & shooting in some extra down that was left over from trimming down sleeping bags to convert them into quilts.
seems like at least part of the down would stick to the synthetic insulation, but i think that would be OK. the rest of the down might be some what "shift-able"???
it's bound to make it warmer. wouldn't hurt to try. it might not be a bad combination.

Hey Tim,

Would you put the down in on the top (against the hammock) or the bottom (facing down towards the ground) of the underquilt.

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Originally Posted by NCPatrick

Hey Tim,

Would you put the down in on the top (against the hammock) or the bottom (facing down towards the ground) of the underquilt.

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i'm thinking the top as the extra loft would help eliminate any air gaps between the UQ and the hammock

my thought was to put the down on the bottom of an under quilt because it's so fluffy & lofty, thinking that the synthetic insulation was attached by quilt loops to the top/liner & the bottom/shell wanted to drop away from the synthetic insulation, leaving a void.

either way, i'm thinking i would only fix the synthetic insulation to one side of the quilt (shell or liner) & add the down to the looser side.
i don't know, maybe it would allow for to much shifting of the down if very much was added, but it sure seems like it would add a nice layer of warmth capturing ability<g>.

i think i would be more likely to put the down on the bottom of an under quilt & on top of a top quilt. seems that it would suffer less compression that way.

if you made it so the syn was around the edges (a foot or so maybe more) you might be able to do away with baffeling, or at least reduce it to two or three large baffels. i made a uq once that was just a unbaffeled bag of down, all the down falls down leaving the vertical parts of the quilt empty (like at your shoulders) if you had syn there, the sides would be protected, and you might get away with one big chamber for all the down. this would probably reduce overall weight since you wouldn't need as much syn at your sides, and you wouldn't have any, or at least alot less baffelling.

you might be able to do a down chamber that was maybe 2 feet wide and the length of the quilt.

i have very little experience with down though, but this is basically the idea i came up with to improve my baffelless down uq, which i never got around to doing.

as far as supplementing a full syn quilt with down, if it was below the syn, it would probably work best, but would still probably all migrate down to the bottom, and the outer shell would have to be baggy enough to give it room to loft, but not so baggy that there was dead air between the syn and the down.

ya know, that might be worth giving a try WBG.
but in my mind, i see synthetic baffles w/ quilt loops holding them in place every 4-6".
the synthetic baffles would each be maybe 2" wide.
they would help to hold the shell & liner apart, allowing the down it's fullest loft.

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Originally Posted by slowhike

ya know, that might be worth giving a try WBG.
but in my mind, i see synthetic baffles w/ quilt loops holding them in place every 4-6".
the synthetic baffles would each be maybe 2" wide.
they would help to hold the shell & liner apart, allowing the down it's fullest loft.

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you mean replacing netting baffels with syn insulation to keep the down from migrating to the bottom? not sure i follow

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Originally Posted by warbonnetguy

you mean replacing netting baffels with syn insulation to keep the down from migrating to the bottom? not sure i follow

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yep, instead of sewing in the netting baffles, the 2" wide strips of synthetic insulation would be attached to both the shell & the liner by quilt loops.
this would from the long chambers for the down.

i don't know that it would really have much or any advantage though???

I am in the process of making something along these lines in a 2 layer hammock. The bottom layer is more like a permanent quilt. I am using down on the sides and a pad for the center of the hammock. The pad will go between the layers. I could drop straight to the ground with this setup and still use the down insulation on the sides. The bottom will have a pocket under the pad that I can insert clothing etc if I need more insulation. I could insert some Climashield XP in the bottom pocket to have a fully insulated hammock. I found out a cool thing too, I can divide the bottom pocket into two sections and use the smaller section to make its own stuff sack similar to how many jackets store in thier own pocket.

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Originally Posted by HANGnOUT

I am in the process of making something along these lines in a 2 layer hammock. The bottom layer is more like a permanent quilt. I am using down on the sides and a pad for the center of the hammock. The pad will go between the layers. I could drop straight to the ground with this setup and still use the down insulation on the sides. The bottom will have a pocket under the pad that I can insert clothing etc if I need more insulation. I could insert some Climashield XP in the bottom pocket to have a fully insulated hammock. I found out a cool thing too, I can divide the bottom pocket into two sections and use the smaller section to make its own stuff sack similar to how many jackets store in thier own pocket.

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sounds pretty interesting. i've thought that having a pad sleeve w/ insulation on the sides (where the ccf inserts are on a SPE) would be good because even though you would compress that inside insulation anywhere you pressed against it, it would act as a draft tube, filling in any voids between you & the hammock & around the edges of the top quilt. keep us informed if you do that.

That does sound interesting. The only thing that bothers me about it is that in the summer it might be a bit of overkill.

I'd like to be able to add or remove layers based on the predicted weather, which the 2 layer hammock does to a degree, except I'd like a "bare-bones" ability to strip everything out when it's really hot.

I'm thinking along the lines of an SPE type thing (except as an underquilt), with a middle rectangle insulated with down with synthetic "wings". Or the reverse of that, with synthetic in the rectangle and down in the wings. The more down you have, the more compressible it should be.

Just read WBG's post. (oops). Baffle-less might work above, if the rectangle were small enough...

Well, this might not go anywhere, it is much easier to just buy and use one insulation or the other...

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Originally Posted by NCPatrick

Well, this might not go anywhere, it is much easier to just buy and use one insulation or the other...

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Sure it'd be easier but what's the fun of that? :D
Seriously though, your original point about saving some cost by relegating down to the vital areas is a interesting one I think. And as far as not going anywhere, I think the thread has already gone in three very interesting directions actually:
1. Down/Synthetic hybrid with down strategically placed and separated by baffles.
2. Down/Synthetic hybrid with down layer and synth layer.
3. Down/Synthetic hybrid utilizing synthetic insulation as baffles
Thanks for starting it.

Hey, that's true. That's what makes this place so interesting. Maybe one idea will spark another.

:D

I'd say that I'd consider options 1 and 2 as most reasonable...

For me 3 seems like a dead end. A synthetic insulation baffle is going to be weaker, MUCH bulkier and likely as heavy or heavier than a fabric baffle whether mesh or solid. You don't sacrifice insulation value with a fabric baffle because its so thin, so there's no benefit there either.

OK in talking I found one potential reason... Synthetic insulation is stiffer than fabric or down so it could hold the layers apart better and reduce compression of your down fill allowing you to make the most of it. That is less weight of down needed to get the loft you want, so it'd be cheaper than "over stuffing" to get extra loft from the down.

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That does sound interesting. The only thing that bothers me about it is that in the summer it might be a bit of overkill.

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Yeah, I am making this for the winter hangs. I have plenty of hammocks for warmer weather. (My wife says too many:D )