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  1. #1
    Senior Member Cruiser51's Avatar
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    UQ Deconstruction - Down Recovery with an Eductor

    One of my first sewing DIY projects was a GE hammock/quilts/tarp set. I moved on to bridge hammocks and have just completed a second new design prototype and none of the quilts I have will properly fit the new unit.

    A GE type is not in my future, so I decided to repurpose/recover whatever mats I could from one of the GE quilts. Since I hadn't found a similar post (it may well be in the forums) I thought I would document the process I followed.

    The target quilt is some 84" x 58" containing 22 oz of 850 FP down


    Now to build the eductor.
    I could have just purchased one of the kitchen drain setups that are pretty much the mainstay of the "eductor" look ups on Google, but decided that I wanted to see if I could up the efficiency/power and use use up some spare ABS fitting I had on hand.

    I will be using my shop vac as an air source, a cotton bag I sewed up to catch the down and the larger hose from the shop vac (I think 1 7/8") to do the actual down collection.

    Here is a pic of all the pieces I used



    On the left is a piece from a left over extension wand from a previous shop vac, it happens to fit nicely into 1 1/2" ABS pipe, so a quick cut off and I have an adapter (wand piece , plus a short chunk of ABS pipe) to connect my shop vac to the eductor. So the left 3 pieces adapt a smaller shop vac hose to 1 1/2" ABS pipe and ends with a ABS coupler.



    The 4th piece is the venturi (or will form the venturi) for the eductor, It consists of another ABS pipe chunk, with a smaller diameter tube mounted inside. I used 1/2" electrical conduit that I had laying around, but anything 1/2" through 3/4" should work fine.

    Construction is straight forward, cut a foam plug about the size of the ABS pipe



    drill a hole, in the foam, for your smaller tube, in my case 1/2" and then mount that in
    the chunk of pipe.


    insert this piece in the 5th piece, an ABS Tee and move the insert tube till it is just under ~1/2 way across the Tee orifice, as shown here



    Mark the inner tube position and trim excess tube from the other side, leaving about 1" extra, recheck the positioning and adjust as required, then add silicon caulk (or whatever you like to use) to secure the pipe/foam insert ( I did both ends) in the ABS pipe hunk.



    The only piece I ended having to go purchase was a 2" coupler, to go from the ABS Tee to the larger shop vac hose, so all the pieces assembled look like this


    Left side is the shop vac inlet, right side is a pipe piece to attach a collection bag and the middle is the Tee with the hose coupler attached, where the larger diameter shop vac hose will be connected.

    The vac produced was surprising, so strong that I also made a few holes in the first adapter pipe to cut down some of the inlet pressure (in the second pic of the wand, notice the pipe has 8 x 1/4" holes added)

    So the collection bag was pretty straight forward as well, it is made of scrap cotton bed sheet, with a small tube sewn at the "top" end and a zipper at the other. It measures around 2' by 3'. In this pic you can see the added bug net tube added to the cotton one, idea was to help get rid of excess air before it hit the bag, forget this, it just creates down jams, it needs the air to carry the down on into the bag, so in practice I connected at the cotton part of the inlet.


    and the zipper view



    So that gives me the collection system, here is a shot of the donor quilt the shop


    I simply started by opening each channel at the end (one at a time) and used the hose, with the extension wand to remove most of the down from the channel



    When you snip it open, this is what it looks like, I just gently waved the hose near the down and let the air stream suck it up ... I learned that it is a lot easier to not use this like a regular vac, just get it close and let the down flow in on the air

    About halfway, I flipped the quilt over and realized it was a lot easier to vacuum if you put the back side down


    another view of an opened channel



    and the final channel done



    Now the front part of the extracted channels looks pretty clean, but further in there is still down clumps because the vac will pull the cloth down and trap it on the sides, so next step is to open each channel and finish the collection

    The first channel is fully opened



    and a few channels later, you really need to open things up to get all of the down. Using the bug net as catch bag seems like a good idea, but if you look at the remaining down in the quilt, a lot is trapped in the net. It's like the down tendrils get snagged up in the netting, while the material is almost clean, hopefully the cotton is good as well.


    and the final product, a fluffy pillow



    The original quilt design had 22 oz of down going in, and I collected back 21.97 oz (got a new scale) so pretty much all the down was recovered in a single go. One other thing to note in all the pics, no down anywhere and I didn't do any cleanup till the end, just move carefully and the down all ends up in the bag.

    Hopefully in a week this down will be living in the new bridge UQ.

    Brian
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Last edited by Cruiser51; 04-14-2022 at 15:50.

  2. #2

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    Nice job! Although I cried a bit to see the quilt destruction!
    im exited to see the new bridge. Did you document the build?
    kris

  3. #3
    Senior Member Cruiser51's Avatar
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    Thanks Kris ... it wasn't easy to cut it up, but the good news is the first place the down is going is a new bridge UQ I just started.

    The new bridge prototype is done and will be going on the first trip of the year in May. I will post the build, once that trip is done and I know it all functions as designed ...


    Brian

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