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  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by Just Bill View Post
    Yar, a confussing topic to be sure.
    Try this-Attachment 96050

    Keep in mind- I'm a ground dweller, but the info is basically the same. In my limited experience thus far, wind chill or "real feel" temp is a better number to use for UQ's. TQ's should work the same as on the ground.

    There is more to this than CLO or loft- but this compares the two a bit more apples to apples.
    Down is based upon loft- which has nothing to do with area (yards), only weight and fill power
    Synthetics are based upon CLO- which is based upon ounces per square yard.
    So this chart puts the two together based upon temps.
    Loft does not equate to CLO! But loft and CLO can be compared by expected temps.
    I included a warm sleeper and cold sleeper temp rating. Keep in mind- these temps assume you have on a base layer.
    Finally- you can boil down the various fills to the ounces per yard needed.
    Ounces of fill per sy yard is the only thing that matters, IMO.

    WHY?
    Because of construction.
    Synthetic fills do not require baffles. Baffles add weight.
    A typical full size quilt requires 5 yards of fabric to make the shells- regardless of fill- you need the shell- so still apples to apples.
    A DOWN quilt requires baffle material, roughly 2 yards per quilt.
    A SYNTHETIC requires no baffle material- no weight penalty.

    Say you build an Argon .67 quilt.
    In down- you need to add (.67x2 x1.05) 1.4 ounces of baffle material to the weight of the down. In synthetic you need zero.
    So if you look at the green comparison- a 40/50 degree quilt needs 2.16 oz of down OR 2.5 oz of Apex. PER SQ YD.
    The quilt takes 2.5 yards of fill-
    Apex- 2.5yards*2.5oz= 6.25 oz
    900 Fill- 2.5yards*2.16oz=5.4 oz + 1.4 ounces of baffles= 6.8 oz.
    This number DOES NOT include "overstuff" which is typically at 25% for down. 25% overstuff would add 1.35 ounces.

    This reason alone is why synthetic is "better" at about 35/45 degrees.
    Something else critical, especially in low temp (30*F or higher) is to look at the baffle heights. 1.5" of baffle in 900 fill down means lots of cold spots, even with overstuff. To solve this you either have to do a sewn through quilt or decrease (add more material) the baffle distance. If you look at a typical down puffy you will notice that the chambers are more like little cylinders than rectangular baffles.
    At temps above freezing- moisture is an issue as well- but that's a different discussion.

    Point being-
    You will see that at the green, orange, and yellow highlighted temps- you'll reach the point where down starts to beat synthetic for each fill.
    The exception for you hangers that I can see- Down does a better job conforming to the geometry needed for an UQ. More accurately- you don't need a perfect fit in a down quilt to achieve the desired rating- so Down is more "hanger friendly" in an UQ in my opinion- although if you have to add in an UQ protector to your down because it's exposed- you should consider the weight of that as part of the UQ system weight- and again re-evaluate if the total system makes sense.

    Same issue if you are adding heavier shell materials to protect your down. Synthetics not only work when wet, but require little or no protection (I.E.- a stray bush snagging you UQ will not cause a feather explosion, just require a stitch or two to patch)

    My opinion- I would rather spend my ounces and grams on insulation, not material to make the insulation work or protect it from failure. So I would stay synthetic well into the 30's or 20's before considering down. Today's synthetics are much more packable than even 5-10 years ago.

    This all also assumes cost is no object- material and construction costs are much higher in down- although I can see how some complex geometry UQ's could be relatively expensive to make compared to a TQ. But bottom line, material costs can easily double, construction time can quadruple with down.

    Down does allow for infinite adjustment via fill weight. Synthetic comes in batts or sheets of a fixed size- so when Apex 2.5 isn't enough, you have to double it to 5 ounces per yard. Down can be micro adjusted to the gram.

    What still isn't clear- how far you can push the Primaloft outside spec and still hit the expected ratings. Even with that unknown, Climashield Apex is still a winner in my book. There are other "flavors" but I personally am not a fan of the High Loft variety and trust the Apex 2.5.

    There are many other pros and cons- to debate for sure- but on warmth per weight at least the math is there.

    Thanks for this Bill, you've been able to explain technically what I've thought intuitively for a while now:

    For the South, particularly the Gulf Coast, the cost of down cannot be justified by any real (vs perceived) advantage gained in choosing it over synthetics. I also felt that there was no real weight advantage to down, even though there are many who claim one, when one considers the normal temperatures to be encountered in this region during even the coldest months of the year. When one adds in the relative humidity and increased likelihood of torrential rain---and now the added weight penalty so ably described, Apex does seem to be the best choice for insulation for anyone camping within 150 miles of the Gulf, and probably most of the desert southwest as well.



    May I borrow some of this for a blog post on the subject (assuming I'll ever get off my duff and do a blog post)?

  2. #32
    Senior Member ripstopbytheroll's Avatar
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    Wow thank you for all that info Bill. I'm still digesting it all, but just wanted to say that I very much appreciate your time in putting that together.
    - Kyle

    www.RipstopbytheRoll.com | "The Best Fabrics on Earth. Guaranteed."

  3. #33
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    Thanks for the very detailed response, yu'all !!!

    Based on all of that it looks like down only starts to be noticeably lighter then synthetics and approach a 1/2 weight savings in the sub-zero range. In the just above freezing temperature zone synthetics seem to hold the advantage and the transition between which holds the potential weight advantage seems to take place across the zone between freezing and zero (on the F scale).

    I was running my calculations on a -40 comfort system which may be why I was coming up with an approx. 1/2 weight advantage for down, and I also wasn't considering the additional fabric weight for baffles.

    As to why on earth I'm calculating for that low of temperatures. Up here in Montana where I live in the high, high country (AKA = Mountain Top) up here in late-fall/early-winter, I've been down to below -60F before and -20F can be a very normal situation. Don't know how much below -60F it was that one time because that is as low as my thermometer went. When I took a leak it formed and upside down icicle because it froze before hitting the ground !!! I had a -35F rated bag on that trip and I had almost every scrap of cloths I had with me on and my coat on inside the bag and although not completely comfortable was warm enough. So a -40F or so system is preferred and nothing less then a -20F system is acceptable for my needs when I get into the high, high country late in the year.

    Bare minimum for me if I go with Primaloft from RSBTR is 2 layers of the 6-oz. Silver, or 3-to-4 layers of the 3-oz. Gold. Or I go with natural down. I'm leaning towards the synthetics mainly due to damage resistance and if I use the 6-oz. Silver I can do a tie style quilt, not sure If I can get away with that with the Gold. Two layers of the silver with a layer of the Gold sandwiched in-between them done tie quilt style and hoping a layer of silver on each side stabilizes the single layer of Gold in-between them enough is at the top of my list of possibilities right now. But then I calculate how much that is going to weigh and then I start thinking about down again.

  4. #34
    Senior Member BillyBob58's Avatar
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    Turbo, if you don't go with 800-900 FP down, I think you are going to need the 12 oz total ( OSY) synthetic as a bare minimum all right. (You may end up being our record setter for cold temps)

    That CS Yeti I refer to often, where I did +40s with 2.5 osy? It is designed to add and remove layers. If memory serves, it was rated for 5F using the 4 layers(10 osy) that came with it. I'm sure the 1st user of this quilt (Cannibal) took it to at least minus 11F with all 4 layers and I think he might have later taken it to about minus 22F. But no telling what kind of layers he was wearing. Plus he called himself the human furnace, a really warm sleeper. So just based on the ratings, approaching zero with 10 oz. So I think for a minus 20F as bare minimum, you are definitely going to need that 12 osy. At least.

  5. #35
    Senior Member Strung out's Avatar
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    Great to see the insulation available at your store.

    Also great to see the discussions comparing insulation.

    In my experience, synthetics do not keep their performance over the years as they are used and compressed repeatedly.

    are these new primaloft offerings supposed to have a longer serviceable life?

  6. #36
    Senior Member RedStix's Avatar
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    I am also curious as to how to make a DIY TQ with this. It seems that you might need to do some quilting, but I am not sure how that is done. Also, could it not just be sewn in between the outside material?

  7. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by RedStix View Post
    I am also curious as to how to make a DIY TQ with this. It seems that you might need to do some quilting, but I am not sure how that is done. Also, could it not just be sewn in between the outside material?
    When I've done any type of sheet batting insulation before (homemade sleeping bags, coats, etc . . . just got into hammock camping) I always did it "tied quilt" style. Which means you just sew the batting down on the edges only usually folded right into the hem of the inner and outer face materials and then you do a grid of ties every so many inches were you take a BIG hand needle (canvas/leather hand sewing needles work great) and some heavy cord or yarn and just sew a small tack of a couple loops through at each grid point. Kind of like sewing on a button by hand, only with out the button and with looser stitch loops that don't pull all the way tight and then tie the two ends of the cord together with a good tight double knot and snip off the excess cord from the knot and move on to the next grid point. Best way to loose as little loft as possible and quick and easy, unfortunately, not all batting can be done tie style.

    The quilting requirements listed on the Primaloft Silver are for it to be sewn every 24" and as such I see no problem at all doing it "tied quilt" style on a 12" grid. However, the quilting requirements listed on the Primaloft Gold are for it to be sewn every 6" and as such I seriously question whether it can be done tied quilt style. With normal quilt batting, once you start seeing numbers that low for how closely it has to be sewn through for it to hold together you usually can't do tied quilts with it.

    Take that with a grain of salt since I have not personally used this specific batting myself (yet) but I have done a lot of quilt batting work using other batting. Primarily, Quilters Dream Wool (QDW) batting for cozy warm when weight wasn't an issue because I'm not going to try to back-pack it in and Quilters Dream Puff (QDP) batting for when I needed maximum warmth for weight without using down. This Primaloft stuff looks like its slightly warmer for the weight then the QDP batting I've used before and thus my interest in it as a replacement for QDP in future projects including the one I'm working on right now.
    Last edited by turbo1889; 10-30-2014 at 20:03.

  8. #38
    Senior Member RedStix's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by turbo1889 View Post
    When I've done any type of sheet batting insulation before (homemade sleeping bags, coats, etc . . . just got into hammock camping) I always did it "tied quilt" style. Which means you just sew the batting down on the edges only usually folded right into the hem of the inner and outer face materials and then you do a grid of ties every so many inches were you take a BIG hand needle (canvas/leather hand sewing needles work great) and some heavy cord or yarn and just sew a small tack of a couple loops through at each grid point. Kind of like sewing on a button by hand, only with out the button and with looser stitch loops that don't pull all the way tight and then tie the two ends of the cord together with a good tight double knot and snip off the excess cord from the knot and move on to the next grid point.
    turbo - I think I have a picture of this in my mind's eye, but would love to see a picture of this. Can you share some?

  9. #39
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    Don't have time at the moment to dig my stuff out of storage and take some pictures of my own work for you because I've got to post and run. But a quick 5-second search on etsy.com (the equivalent of ebay for people selling homemade stuff and materials especially cloth and clothing stuff) and I came up with this listing which is right along the lines of the stuff I've made:

    https://www.etsy.com/listing/93952683

    First and third pictures in the listing really shows what I'm talking about by with doing the ties through the material on a grid pattern to keep the insulation in-between the inner and outer layers from shifting around and keeps it in place without squashing it down and loosing insulation value. Although on my ties I tend to not leave that much excess thread hanging and just leave a knot nubbin with only 1/8"-1/4" of thread ends.

  10. #40
    Senior Member RedStix's Avatar
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    Thanks turbo. That pictures is basically what I was thinking. I guess given the choice between the Primaloft and Climashield I would probably choose the Climashield and not have to do this quilting.

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