Baffles baffle me!

[eviscerate3]

Hello, I think I am finally ready to try a diy topquilt with down. I have made a couple of climashield tq's which were very easy. My only experience with down is stuffing an underquilts.com foyle underquilt (which I am extremely pleased with). My question is how do you decide how to do your baffles? How do you decide how many baffles and in which direction they go? And what is the thought behind it? It seems that the fewer baffles you have would make things easier in the thread injecting department. It also seems that the more baffles you have the better the down will stay in place and not migrate too far. So what is the good balance of the two? My hope is to make it a 30 degree quilt with 800fp down. I appreciate the help! Thank you!

[Floridahanger]

I don't know the exact science behind it for down, but I just made a synthetic TQ with 1.5" high baffles. I spread them 5" apart starting at the headend working my way towards the footend.

That gave me 16 chambers with the footend being a little more than 5", but ok since I have a drawstring/snaps footbox to open and close.

The lenth of the TQ will help determine the width of the chambers. You may want between 14-19 chambers depending on how tall you are.

I'm 5'9'' and my TQ just comes over my head when footbox is closed. Also, my 24oz of synthetic poly-fil got me down to 33*F last week and was warm.

Good luck on your project.

[nacra533]

Take a look a the karo step quilts as well. I built my tq that way. The good thing is you can really put the down where you need it pretty easily. If you think about how you ay in a hammock, you only need down on the top because the UQ wraps around your sides. While laying, a couple arm hits on each side puff alot of down up to the top center.

It wasn't that tough, probably no tougher or easier than regular baffles on the sewing. Much slower or the measuring and marking.

I made mine with 2" baffles for roughly 20. I've slept in it to 20 a couple times with a down jacket on. Didn't get cold on top, a little cool on the bottom, UQ side. I would call it an easy 30 degree. I didn't overstuff it much, I wish I had added a few more ozs of down. It lofts to about 4" in the middle.

I built mine based on animalcontrol's primarily while referencing TeeDee's and a couple others. I didn't add draft stoppers. I didn't need them.
https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...ad.php?t=11524

https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...ead.php?t=8328

https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...ad.php?t=22485

[chickenwing]

I can't remember where I saw it but I remember seeing I thread about loft and temperature rating. I do know that you can go to some of our cottage vendors sites and "borrow" from their knowledge. I based my quilts loosely from information gathered here on the forums and also by looking at as many vendor sites as possible (you can also contact them directly and ask them - no shame in my game - I've had numerous conversations with different vendors and asked directly).

When filled appropriately, the down will interlock and stay in place in the chamber. Although you don't want the chambers to be too large because it can give more of an opportunity for the down to shift.

Hope this helps. Best of luck on the quilt.

[nacra533]

Check out the info on CLO from AYCE over on thru hiker ??? It gets a little more technical than just inches and degrees but for fun for a technical understanding. Mainly around synthetics.

[eviscerate3]

Is there a reason for the baffles going across the short distance vs. running them lengthwise? It seems to the footbox would end up better with the baffles going the short distance? is this correct? What do you guys find is a good baffle width? i am thinking about using 2.5" noseeum to create the baffles but I can't figure out how many baffles to make. i think the fewer the better as far as ease of making it but how few is too few for down migration? I looked at the karo style quilts but it seems like a lot more work with the thread injector. i see some people using 15-20 baffles for one quilt. Is this really necessary for a 30 degree quilt? I appreciate your help!

[Floridahanger]

Since there is no need to offset the top shell from the bottom shell in a TQ, the baffles go from the side to side. If you need to adjust the insulation, you fold the TQ in half and shake a little(insulation go towards middle of TQ).

The footbox does benefit from this config but so does the top nearest your head(you can close also if drawcord).

5-6 inches for the chamber width for my 2 synthetic TQ's work fine. I wouldn't go larger because there is more room to disperse the insul out of place. Down is probably the same but may do better with the smaller chamber(and easier to control). This means more chambers and more sewing, but well worth it, IMO.

When creating your baffles, remember to leave plenty of seam allowance to make it easier to sew. I used 3/4" seam allowance but 1/2" is also great and uses less material.

The number of chambers will be dependent on how long the TQ is and the width of the chambers. When you determine how long to make it, you can play with how many chambers to make to get an easy width for the chambers or viceversa.