How do you tame down?

[ecologito]

Today I decided to harvest one of my BB&B down throw to stuff another one just like it.

Before you know it I was on the back porch looking like in the middle of a snow storm surrounded by cottonwood seeds coming down.

I tried cutting a slit at the bottom of the baffles and pinching it out little by little which I thought it worked well but really slow. I tried a shopvac and crap hit the ceiling...

Do you DIY gurus have any hints to tame this fluffly stuff?

[Browncoat27]

I recently did the same thing and found a technique that worked pretty well but don't know if it'll translate well to most folks. I'm a woodworker so I happen to have a couple of dust collectors in my shop and used one to harvest the down. The type I linked here works exceptionally well because the filter bag is simply that: a bag. So all the down ended up conveniently in a bag when I was done.

Now, most people won't have a dust collector like I do, and I'd hardy suggest spending $200+ for a 'down collector' but if you know any woodworkers, they might have one you could borrow for the task. I'd recommend getting a new filter bag for the job though, so it'd be clean.

I wouldn't use a shop-vac unless you rig up some sort of 2-stage system so the down would all end up in a separate container before it gets to the vacs filter.

Assuming that you don't have either, what I would suggest is essentially what I ended up doing to get the down from my dust collector bag into the other quilts I was making: rip out all of the seams of your down throw (but not the outside edges) so that you essentially end up with just a big bag of down. Then, shake all the down to one corner of the bag so it's basically all contained in one area.

When you're ready to harvest it and move it into another throw/quilt/blanket/what-have-you, cut a small hole in the 'bag' big enough for you to get your hand into and carefully pull out a handful at a time and migrate it to its new home. I found the best way was to do it in the bathtub with the shower curtain/door closed that way you limit where the down goes that escapes your hand during transfer (it will, I assure you). But it'll eventually settle down into the tub and can be fairly easily scooped up.

In my experience, the key is getting all of the down migrated into one smaller area rather than trying to move a little at a time. When all bunched together it's fairly easy co compress a bunch into a handful to move from one place to another.

Hopefully that all makes sense. Let me know if it doesn't.

[zooshooter]

I'm a little late to the party, buuuuuuut. I made a down underquilt and had to move the down by hand. What I did was use a paper towel tube with bug mesh over the hose of my vacuum cleaner. I was fortunate in that the paper tube was a perfect fit over the attachment end of the hose once the bug net was on it. Then, I'd just use the vacuum to suck up down until it wouldn't suck it into the tube anymore. Take the tube off the hose, but cover the end with your thumb because the down will want to come rushing out as it expands. Put the tube in your storage container and carefully push it out of the tube with a rod/screwdriver/ruler/etc. Depending on how much down you're harvesting you may just want a very large bag to accomodate the expansion and then just stuff it down a little for storage.

[GadgetUK437]

Duct tape is your friend,


--
Gadget

[Carrico]

If you're not too concerned about getting exact weights, you can just wet the down, down into one big Clump which makes it really easy to handle and then divided by volume stuff it into whatever your stuffing and then dry it. Since down doesn't soak up water uniformly you can't really go by weight and it'd be hard to say get exactly one ounce per baffle as an example, but it is a lot easier to handle when it's wet.

[leiavoia]

I put a mesh bag for straining liquids inside the vacuum. Sucks everything into the baggy. Periodically need to dump the mesh bag into a larger garbage sack. That worked okay.

I tried using the wetting method and just ended up with wet down. It was not any easier to handle and was now 10x more sticky.

I can't tell you about your chances, but you have my sympathies.

[Pra4sno]

Duct tape is your friend,


--
Gadget

Gadget you GENIUS!

I completely abandoned overstuffing my BBB quilts after having an explosion of down. This method is phenomenal. I am absolutely going to do this to the quilts I have built now.

[Carrico]

I put a mesh bag for straining liquids inside the vacuum. Sucks everything into the baggy. Periodically need to dump the mesh bag into a larger garbage sack. That worked okay.

I tried using the wetting method and just ended up with wet down. It was not any easier to handle and was now 10x more sticky.

I can't tell you about your chances, but you have my sympathies.

Well when I tried the vacuum method, I just ended up with another bag of loose down to deal with;<p. I'm really just teasing, but bashing someone else's idea because you didn't have good results, doesn't mean everybody will have the same results, results May Vary. Honestly I gave up on trying to tame down, now I just sit outside when the wind's not blowing and take handfuls at a time stuffing it into Ziploc bags to the exact weight that I want. Then cut the bottom out and stuff them into the chambers of my quilt then unzip the tops and push the down in. It makes a huge mess and I do lose some, but I have yet to find a clean effective method that doesn't involve a ton of time and labor. The cleanest method I tried is to use a large tube attachment on a Shop-Vac, plug the back end with a piece of screen, suck up the down to where it fills the tube attachment, take the tube attachment off the vacuum cleaner and push it into the chamber you want to fill with a stick. This does take a lot of time though. And it's hard to get an exact weight.

[ecologito]

Thank you all for the ideas, suggestions and shared experiences. I am pretty happy with my overstuffed UQ. I only stuffed 4 channels and saved the extra down that didn't end up decorating the neighborhood.

I may try the duct tape method to stuff a couple more channels.

[jgibby]

Drifter has a really cool system, that I haven't seen matched yet, to not only collect down, but also to transfer it to the receiving quilt. He uses a 1.5" sink drain T with an inflatable mattress pump. And the really cool thing is that while it creates a vacuum to suck up the down, the suction isn't so powerful that it grabs the quilt. The only thing I am wondering about is why it is necessary to do what he did with the noseeum mesh and close pins. Seems to me you could just use painter's tape to seal things off.