Down harvest

[Mrprez]

I bought a vintage rectangular down sleeping bag off eBay with the intention of harvesting the down. According to the label on the bag the fill weight was 40 oz of Sterling Grey Goose down. So, today I started to harvest the down. The bag is a sewn through design so no internal baffles. This made it a bit easier as I could open up each baffled area and get the down out. I started out using a cardboard tube over the end of the vacuum cleaner wand with a thin sock over it's end. This worked but was painfully slow and a bit messy. I decided to move the operation outside as the temps were nice and no wind. I continued with the tube but it was just taking too long. Since there was no wind, I cut a slit down the middle of each baffle and transferred the down by hand into my plastic bag. This went much faster but I did have to sacrifice a lot more down this way. But, I could tell that the feather count was very low and the down was of a high quality. Probably 700 to 750 or so. Nice white down. Once I had gotten as much as I wanted, I went in and weighed my bag. 32 ounces of downy down. More than enough to make a nice top quilt and some other down goodies.

I wanted to make a Down Recovery Unit (DRU) like the one that drifter made but was unable to find the pump.

[Zilla]

Nice!, i looked on ebay for 2 weeks and ended up ordering from wl. i could not find a good deal and was worried that what i did find was low down count.

Glad it worked out for you, please post pics when you get your tq and goodies done!

[Mrprez]

This is what I started with.

[Mrprez]

Nice!, i looked on ebay for 2 weeks and ended up ordering from wl. i could not find a good deal and was worried that what i did find was low down count.

Glad it worked out for you, please post pics when you get your tq and goodies done!

I worried about as well as was relieved when I dug into it and found such a nice down.

[zooshooter]

I bought a vintage rectangular down sleeping bag off eBay with the intention of harvesting the down. According to the label on the bag the fill weight was 40 oz of Sterling Grey Goose down. So, today I started to harvest the down. The bag is a sewn through design so no internal baffles. This made it a bit easier as I could open up each baffled area and get the down out. I started out using a cardboard tube over the end of the vacuum cleaner wand with a thin sock over it's end.

I did this as well using the tube from a roll of paper towels but I substituted a strip of leftover noseeum mesh for the sock and secured it with masking tape. It worked ok, but after vacuuming up almost a pound of down the tube was ready to collapse.

[drifter]

If you can find a blow dryer that has a burned out heating element, that will work also. All you need is something with a medium volume of air output. Good luck.

[squidbilly]

I made a simple but effective down recovery system yesterday. At first I tried using my portable vacuum cleaner with a piece of fine mesh in the extension tube, but it just clogged up too soon. The solution was to add a box, a non coated stuff bag, and an extra vacuum hose. Cut two holes in the top of the box: one for the vacuum cleaner hose, one for the extra hose. Attach the stuff bag to the end of the extra hose on the inside of the box. Close the box, turn on the vacuum and suck up the down with the extra hose (the one with the stuff bag). The added surface area of the bag allows you to suck up much more down before clogging. I didn't even bother to seal the seams of the box, since it seemed to reduce the air flow to a good level. The box was approximately 18 x24x10 inches, and is fairly sturdy for cardboard, as it is one of those non glued fold up types with double walls on the sides.

[drifter]

squidbilly, I had to read that a few times before the light bulb went off. That was a good idea.

[Mrprez]

squidbilly, I had to read that a few times before the light bulb went off. That was a good idea.

Ha! I had to read it about six times before I realized the catch bag was in the box.

[squidbilly]

squidbilly, I had to read that a few times before the light bulb went off. That was a good idea.

Sorry guys, I could have explained that better. I was trying to be brief because I was in my hammock out in the yard, posting on a mobile device.

A better system could be made with a five gallon bucket. Vacuum tube goes in the top. Down recovery tube goes in the bottom. Separate the top and bottom of the bucket with a fine screen-like a dryer lint screen. You could suck up the down and store it in the same container.