One other question, was the 16 ounces of down significantly larger in volume when removed from the "pillow" from Rose Feather? I imagine I'll need a pretty large bowl and that it's packed fairly tight when it comes from them.Originally Posted by MoldyFrog
Yes. I think someone mentioned it comes as a pillow around 12 x 14 x 4". Assuming it is legit 950 fill power, 500g should ideally fluff up to fill almost 17,000 square inches or about a 25x gain in volume.
For transferring you can also McGyver up a down sucker on your vacuum cleaner. Basically a T put inline and a section of no see-um mesh. The mesh allows for the suction to grab the down and while also trapping the down from actually going into the machine. Then you can suck out the down instead of grabbing handfuls, mostly. There's a thread here somewhere that shows how to make one.
It is a messy and time-consuming job no matter which way you go about it, there are several different ways of doing it and lots of YouTube tutorials. I've tried three separate ways and so far I haven't had much luck with any of them. The fastest way I have found is simply filling Ziplock bags up one handful at a time until you get the weight you are looking for. If you have a shower or bathtub that's closed off by a curtain or a door that works good, outside if there's no wind blowing is my favorite way of doing it ,wear a dust mask inhaling down sucks. If you're going to dump the pillowcase out into a large bowl or something you better make sure there's no wind at all, otherwise it's going to be blowing all over the place. And yes that little pillow is going to poof up and overflow just about any vessel you probably have in your house besides your bathtub Maybe. You also have to move slow while you're pulling down and out and putting it in other containers any quick movement will send stuff flying. But it's really not as bad as it sounds just go slow and take your time. The cleanest way I tried was putting a piece of screen or in my case nylons for my wife over the end of my shop vac tube, sucking the down up in the tube which gets caught in the tube cuz it won't go by the mesh and then pushing it in the baffle with a stick ,however it is extremely hard to get any kind of precise weight with this method.
By all means, let's argue about whether or not a hammock will hurt a tree. All the while ignoring the fact that there is an island of garbage the size of Texas floating in the Pacific ocean. Or how about the fact that over 75% of the world's nuclear reactors are leaking...
This is what I did. Tare the scale to zero, stuff the down into a tube with screen on one end. Once I had the right amount (weight) for a baffle, I blew the down out of the tube into the chamber.
I didn’t find it too messy. You can leave the down mostly compressed as you stuff the tube.
Any idea if you can get an ounce of down into a paper towel tube? Would love to be able to do it once per baffle. 18 baffles, 1 oz per..
I put large clear plastic bin on scale - can see the reading through the bottom - in bathtub with curtain closed and air vent closed -
Then I just carefully remove a bit at a time into the bin and when I hit the weight I want then stuffs into the quilt which I have in the tub too
This I’ve found to be very minimally messy - easy cleanup - almost no real loss of down and simple
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”
I'd be willing to bet you can stuff an ounce in one, getting it in there would be the hard part. Getting it out into the baffle should be easy though, that worked well with the Shop-Vac tube .
By all means, let's argue about whether or not a hammock will hurt a tree. All the while ignoring the fact that there is an island of garbage the size of Texas floating in the Pacific ocean. Or how about the fact that over 75% of the world's nuclear reactors are leaking...
Got mine today! Right in the middle of the (long) delivery window.
I'm nowhere near ready to deal with it, but should I unpack it at least a bit so the down doesn't get permanently squished?
The down will be fine, it's not compression that hurts down it's compressing and expanding that will break down the fibers, but over a very long period of time. I've seen sleeping bags compressed for years and still loft up just fine, it just takes a little longer and you might need to agitate it in the dryer or something to get it to loft completely. In fact down is one of the most resilient insulations when it comes to compression and expansion, synthetics breakdown much faster.
By all means, let's argue about whether or not a hammock will hurt a tree. All the while ignoring the fact that there is an island of garbage the size of Texas floating in the Pacific ocean. Or how about the fact that over 75% of the world's nuclear reactors are leaking...
I cut a corner off the pillow and then reached in with a few fingers to pull out clumps of compressed down, and placed it inside the tote. Then I would slowly transfer down to a large mixing bowl that I had zeroed on my scale until it read the amount I was wanting. Once I had the proper amount measured out, I took the section of 1" pipe I had from my failed attempt at making a down eductor, and I just put one end in the bowl and used my fingers to pack it tightly inside the tube. That allowed me to stick the tube inside the chamber I wanted to fill. I used a 1" stick like a plunger from the other end to push all the down directly into the chamber all at once. The tube allows the smallest opening to be used so no (or very minimal) down flies out. This was my technique for adding down to my CDT. Having to cut the chamber open only large enough to fit the pipe meant I didn't need to shove my hand inside the chamber, and it meant I had less to sew back closed.
20171214_140748.jpg
Just your average kayak-paddlin', fish-stalkin', gun-totin', hammock-hangin' Critical Care Paramedic
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks