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Lightest material?


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Viewing 6 posts - 26 through 31 (of 31 total)
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  • #1344488
    Vick Hines
    Member

    @vickrhines

    Locale: Central Texas

    Bill F,
    Maybe you’ve already discussed this, but have you made a down anything with the silk you describe?

    #1344489
    Bill Fornshell
    BPL Member

    @bfornshell

    Locale: Southern Texas

    Hi Miguel and Jocob,
    Miguel I am sorry to hear you have been in and out of the hospital. I hope you are better or getting better. It will be one year ago on 14 Nov that I spent my two months in treatment. I was lucky enough to be able to go home almost everyday for 8 or 10 hours. Unfortunatelly the side effects linger on.

    I first started working on my home-made DAM idea in July 2004. My goal was to build a sort of floating bivy. A hammock with built in air tubes for the DAM version and the Top Cover that would attach to the hammock body so the down baffles could be removed to be used in other things during the day. The down baffles in the DAM tubes would also be removable for the same reason if necessary. By being able to remove the down baffles I would be able to replace the down baffles with other baffles with more or less down and change the temperature range of the DAM up or down.

    When I use the term “down baffles” what I mean is my silk tubes filled with down. Think of a silk condom filled with an ounce or so of down. These silk baffles are how ever long they need to be for the DAM and the down Top Cover. They slide into or out of a sleeve sewn into the shell material.

    My current version DAM/Top Cover Sleeping System can do all that but the material I used was just some cheap and about 2oz per sq yard material from Wal Mart. I never had the Fabric I wanted to make the final “Floating Bivy”. I wanted eVent and Pertex Quatum and it just wasn’t available.

    One of my long range goals is to do a winter AT Thru-Hike. The Floating Bivy could be used for this and it could have been set-up on the ground or hanging. I want everything in one neat rolled up package, unflate the DAM and roll everything up – get where I am going to set-up for the night and unroll it and hang it or tie it out on the ground. If I have used the down baffles for something during the day put them back where they go and go to bed.

    Material that is easy to get today that might work. This is the good question. I think Pertex Quatum would be my fist pick for the outer shell. The problem is getting it and that is about “0” I think. Thru-Hiker has something like it at only a little more weight. I have some and it looks just like the shell material WM used on one of my sleeping bags. I could use my Pertex Quatum but want to save it for something else.

    Thru-Hiker also sells a number of very light kinds of material. I have been thinking about using these two.
    Link “Bivy Top” ?? Material

    Link Bivy” Bottom?? Material

    We can “want” something else in material but can we get it? I want something that will work and is as light as I can get it.

    Miguel maybe you can be our Japanese connection to Pertex Quatum.

    #1344492
    Miguel Arboleda
    BPL Member

    @butuki

    Locale: Kanto Plain, Japan

    >Miguel I am sorry to hear you have been in and out of the hospital. I hope you are better or getting better. It will be one year ago on 14 Nov that I spent my two months in treatment. I was lucky enough to be able to go home almost everyday for 8 or 10 hours. Unfortunatelly the side effects linger on.< Thanks Bill. While I haven’t had quite the experience you went through, it’s scary nonetheless. I’ve been having diabetic complications (my feet, nerves, and possibly my eyes). Hopefully things have gotten under control, but you never know with Type 1 diabetes. Sure makes you appreciate simple things… I read about the poly tubes you use for your down baffles, but I can’t remember where I saw the thread, here or over at WhiteBlaze… What kind of tubing do you use and where can I get the tubing? Does it have to be very strong? How exactly do you close off the ends to trap the air? Do you blow directly into them or do you use some kind of surgical tubing or so? Would long strips of PolarGuard or PrimaLoft work just as well inside the baffle tubes? Do the seams between the baffles have to be double stitched? Sorry, I have a lot of questions. I, too, wanted to get eVent but can’t find it anywhere to buy. After using my Montane eVent Superfly for the past year I have nothing but good things to say about eVent (though funny, that sometimes it is a bit TOO breezy!). You mention a Japanese Pertex Quantum connection here in Japan. I heard about the possible demise of Pertex, but may I ask what that might have to do with Japan? Are they moving here? If so I’ll try to find out more about that. Though such peons as you and me probably have next to nil chance of obtaining any kind of specialty material here in Japan. I’ve tried everywhere for quite a few Japanese-made materials and have always been told that they are not available for individual purchasing. Would be good to find an exception though.

    #1344500
    paul johnson
    Member

    @pj

    Locale: LazyBoy in my Den - miss the forest

    Miguel,

    search the Forum Posts for more info. Perseverance Mills was purchased by a Japanese company which will be moving production to Japan.

    #1344502
    jacob thompson
    Spectator

    @nihilist37

    Just another note on the silk. I received today 10yds of the 21H china habotai from http://www.thaisilks.com . As I noted before I’m using it as the casing for my synthetic quilts. I did a reasonably accurate weight test and found it to weigh only 0.438oz.yd-2. This makes quite a light weight fabric indeed. I did some more preliminary conservative weight calculations and arrived at a 16.5oz very large, full featured 45F quilt, and 10.8oz 70F quilt in the same way. Getting toward the light end of the spectrum.

    I also have done a swatch test of the wash in DWR on the silk and found that it worked fantastically. The silk showed no damage due to the DWR and the only differences I could notice were that the silk was crushed (due to agitation but its a non issue) the silk had a little less slip against itself and a little more slip against the skin. Breathability hasn’t changed at all and running water at low speed over the swatch caused it to bead and roll off. When I bowled the fabric and filled it with a little water the water didn’t seep through the silk until it was pashed. The fabric didn’t wick water through the threads as it did before the DWR coating. I can imagine that if I were getting splashed with rain from outside or inside the tarp all it would take is a few shakes of the quilt to get most of the water off and I believe that it would take a reasonable amount of water pressure to wet through the fabric. However it is still delicate silk and I will need to baby the fabric as I would with any other piece of UL gear.

    I am very impressed with the results. I think it will make an excellent cover for my quilts and will definitely serve it’s purpose of protecting the PG3D. The only foreseeable problems I can think of is that it will lett a breeze through quite easily. This would be solved with a bivy or a lock down tarp setup.

    I would also like to contact Bill for and off forum point my email is jacobfryatt (at) yahoo (dot) com (dot) au

    #1358926
    Michael Demchak
    Member

    @mikey

    Locale: new england

    hey jacob,
    i was woundering if you finished your quilts yet? I’m thinking about doing the same for a summer quilt, if i can get close to the weight of down, i sure wouldn’t mind saving some much needed $. pictures would be quite a 4th of july treat :D
    thanks!
    mike!

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