Baffle Math, U shaped baffles, probably making things more complex than they need to be

[thecatwasnot]

As these things go, I went from wondering how much down to buy to running out of math-foo. I am seriously considering making my down top quilt with U-shaped baffles like EE does. It looks unique enough but takes advantage of the combo horizontal & vertical baffles with hopefully a little simpler stuffing.
In any case I'm trying to figure out how long to make each of the horizontal sections of baffle so that it looks even and as good as I can make it. I think I will do 5 chambers total (this is how a Revelation is made.)
Has anyone done the figuring to figure this out? I've got triangles and trapezoids all over my piece of paper but trig was too long ago now for me to make heads or tails of things.

I know how long the bottom needs to be to create the footbox, and how tall the tapered section will be, I think if I know how long to make those sections of baffle I can figure out the rest.

[LooseGooseDownSupply]

Since you already know the widths of the baffles you need, you should just be able to measure and mark the vertical sections one baffle width down further. So if you were doing 5 inch baffles, make the center vertical baffle to the top of the footbox and the next baffle out make it 5 inches longer. The next one would be 10 inches longer and so on. Then just connect the lines at the bottom to form the bottom of the U. The catsplat down calculator is listed on our website, so that might help you out a little with down calculations, and if you fill out the contact us section I can send you a a spreadsheet that some other designs that arent differential cut to help with calculations. Unfortunately none of those are U shaped designs.

[thecatwasnot]

Thanks, I made some progress on the plan this morning. Do you think it's important to put a differential cut on a top quilt? In the hammock it probably doesn't matter. I could see not having a differential cut being a problem on the ground on my side.

[LooseGooseDownSupply]

It's much less important on a top quilt than on an underquilt, but would definitely help. It your case I probably wouldn't make a differential cut but would definitely overstuff, and make the baffle height slightly larger than recommended for temp rating.