what's your way to salvage down

[dangerous]

So I picked up a JCP puffy jacket and want to know what you guys think will be the easiest way to extract the down

[bowl-maker]

what are you trying to do with it? there are several threads about reusing those without having to mess with the down

[dangerous]

I'm hoping to make summer sewn through topquilt. Anyone know how much down is in an xxl jacket?

[hk2001]

I saw a way on here somewhere to use a tube and a low power vacuum... May have been a fronkey post... I picked up 4 lands end goose down puffy coats @ good will for $2 each... Some day I'll get the ambition to harvest the down.

[bowl-maker]

I'm hoping to make summer sewn through topquilt. Anyone know how much down is in an xxl jacket?

from my experience I would not think there is enough down in one jacket for a TQ. check my sig for my DIY TQ from the puffer jackets (thelorax has a good tutorial also)

as far as working down my method is shop vac with down proof netting on the hose and an extension over that to collect the down

[SwinginIt]

Whichever way you do it I recommend digging out that old tent that's probably collecting dust somewhere and putting it to good use as down containment chamber. That way any down that gets free is contained within the tent, and you now have a good use for your tent.

[drifter]

I use this contraption and store the down all together in a pillow case till i'm ready to inject into some project. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5U0C85gv1Q

[the_lorax]

from my experience I would not think there is enough down in one jacket for a TQ. check my sig for my DIY TQ from the puffer jackets (thelorax has a good tutorial also)

as far as working down my method is shop vac with down proof netting on the hose and an extension over that to collect the down

Yeah, a single jacket isn't going to give you enough down by itself to be worth it (My guess would be like 4oz down if you're lucky?). But then why take the down out of the jacket in the first place if you're just trying to make a sewn through quilt - a number of us have done UQs & TQs just by separating out the various jacket pieces and re-arranging them which seems like a lot less work (and almost certainly less mess) than trying to take them apart and get the down out too.

Now if you were trying to extract down from something with more in it like a pillow, old sleeping bag or thicker coat then the shop-vac with netting is probably good. If you really want to de-down a JCP jacket here's what I'd do - disassemble the panels and then carefully open up the end of one baffle at a time and suck out the down - don't try to open up a whole end at one because the baffles aren't all that large and if you have multiple open at once while you're sucking the down out of the first one the others will be shedding down all over.

Two things I found helpful while doing my JCP puffer projects
1) Have some packing tape/wide masking tape handy for when you accidentally open up a seam or cut something you didn't want to - quick slap some tape over it like a band-aid.
2) Have a spray bottle of water handy - have it set to mist and if you have down start to get away on you mist a bit of water above it and let the mist settle down on the wayward down. This will help prevent the down from drifting all over the place and give you a chance to pick it up. Don't spray the water directly at it from point blank though or it'll go flying - shoot parallel or even up and let it rain down. (Um yeah, I panicked one time and wasn't thinking )

+1 to SwinginIt's suggestion of a tent; do it in an enclosed area - I only inadvertently exposed small amounts of down during my JCP jacket fun and am still spotting down plums all over the house weeks later. You could do it in the shower behind the curtain like Fronkey did in his down video and that'd help contain it too.

[Hammonkey]

What I did when I split my jackets up, was take the extra pieces I wasn't using and over stuffed the jacket that was thinnest. I was able to get about an oz of down.

first I sprayed all the scraps with the mist setting of a spray bottle. Next I scooped out the (still dryish) feathers from each piece and put them in a bowl then lightly sprayed a mist over them to wet them down and keep them from flying away. Be sure not to spray closely or hard, every little breeze will blow feathers everywhere. as the bowl filled up I would pack the feathers straight down, you don't want to damage the down by rolling or folding tearing the material. I just packed straight down to make room for more down. I could have used a larger bowl. The bigger the better.

Once I had all the pieces I just picked up clumps of wet down and stuffed into the channels I wanted to over stuff. sewed up the seams, then threw it into the dryer on low with a couple tennis balls carefully pulling the clumps apart in the channels to allow for even clumpless drying.

This is not the most precise method by any means, but it worked for me. I was worried about drying the down in the dryer, but it turned out all right. and is nice, fluffy, and clump free now.

[dangerous]

Thanks for the advice guys, and this is just a project for a hot weather TQ using only 3 or 4 oz of down. I"ll let you guys know how it works out.