Wanted: someone to modify a sleeping bag for me, and ideas

I'd be interested in knowing who still provides this service as well.

I'd like to add an alternative option that maybe one of the cottage manufactures could provide. A quilt with one side unfinished for the owner to use their own down and sew to complete or send down to the cottage maker to include in a quilt.

The link didn't work for me so I don't know exaclty what kind of back we're talking about.
I did try turning a synthetic bag into a quilt and was dissappointed that I didn't save more weight than I did. I would NOT pay more than $100 (if that) for a project like this. For a bit over $100 you could probably find a used bag or a cheap but somewhat light bag online.

Full link…

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Cabelas-Boundary-Waters-Sleeping-Bags/1160381.uts?Ntk=AllProducts&searchPath=%2Fcatalog%2Fsearch.cmd%3Fform_state%3DsearchForm%26N%3D0%26fsch%3Dtrue%26Ntk%3DAllProducts%26Ntt%3Dsleeping%2Bbag%2Bwaters%26x%3D0%26y%3D0%26WTz_l%3DHeader%253BSearch-All%2BProducts&Ntt=sleeping+bag+waters&WTz_l=Header%3BSearch-All+Products

Okay thats helpful. Well you would save a little big of weight from removing the hood and zipper. The main savings is going to be reducing the overall size of the bag. Here is what I would do. Measure your bag than calculate the weight per square foot. Than calculate the area of a quilt and see how much weight that would add up too. This should give you a rough idea of whether or not a project like this would be worth the effort. If you need dimensions enlightenedequipment.com makes quilts and they list dimensions on their different sizes. Should give you a basic idea of what to look for.
To give you a ball park, quilts seem to be about 30-40% lighter than an equivalent mummy bag. So you MIGHT be able to reduce your 5 pound bag down by 40-50% to 2.5-3 pounds which is a big improvement. I think the big question woutld be whats the cost. There are a number of sleeping bags in the 2.5 pound range that aren't that expensive. I'd take a look at those unless fixing your current bag is just way cheap.

Your weight savings will also depend on how much down you will be over-stuffing the remaining baffles with.

If you know what your dimensions are and the fill power of the down then it would be fairly easy to figure out the needed down and usually people overstuff by 10%. At that point it just comes down to the weight of the fabric and trimming. Also do you want a button up foot box or a zipper? Usually when people do this sort of alteration they use grosgrain ribbon to trim the edges out.

The price of the alteration will depend heavily on all of the above. Put more details up and you will probably get some bites from people willing to help, shoot I may offer my services.

My bag is a 20 degree version of that bag, I am pretty sure it weights 53 ounces or 3.31 lbs. I will measure it again tonight to be sure it has been a while since I put it on the scale and I deleted it off my spreadsheet.

The 'translate to per square inch' weight idea is a great idea, I will try that tonight when I weight it. That isnt going to factor in the weight of the zipper coming completly off though but it should give me an idea. If I could knock a full pound off of it for a reasonable price I think it would be worth it. I love the sleeping bag, I have camped in it 3 times and backpacked it once but got on a quick light learning curve. Went on a summer trip and decided at the last minute to take a thin blanket I had and cut it into a quilt to try quilting. LOVED it!

As far as the footbox…I would tend to think buttons would be better.

As far as the down, if what I have is roughly a 20 degree bag, I would like to bump it down as close as I can get to 0 degrees without getting crazy.

Let me do some research on the sizes.

Thank you, very helpful information/ideas!

The one issue I see would be the fact that the bag is already configured to handle a certain amount of down per channel. The bag you have has 650fp down and is rated for 20˚, I would be interested to know how much loft the channels will allow the down to get to, but a 20˚ bag will normally allow 2.5 – 3" of loft. If you wanted to get to 0˚ you would have to get to 3.5 – 4" of loft, this thickness would depend on whether you are a cold sleeper or not. So that being said your bag may not be able to allow the loft to get you down to where you want to be. You may be able to get 5 – 10˚ colder with over-stuffing but at a point your probably hurting your warmth rating due to the down not being able to fully loft.

Take a look at hammockgear.com's top quilts. That will give you an idea of what is out there and they have dimensions and such listed as well.

http://www.hammockforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=41696

Yeah that makes sense.

Is it possible to take the down that is in the part that is cut off and put that back into the quilt?

That is kind of what I was thinking, use that and stick it in the final quilt, let the temp rating fall where it may. If there is too much then just stuff in what is reasonable. Not to say I know what is reasonable but I assume someone that has made a quilt or two would know and could use their judgement. I will take whatever it ends up being. Maybe it just ends up being a for firm 20 or a 15 degree bag, that is fine. Maybe it is not really a 20 now and it just ends up being a better 20.

On the flip side, if the person making the quilt can stuff in the leftovers and it still appears to have plenty of space, maybe add in a little more based on their judgement.

Yeah you can transfer the down. And the amount would be plenty easy to figure out. Your bag has 650fp so every ounce fills 650 sq. inches. So you/someone helping you out would just need to figure the volume of the chamber and then fill accordingly. All it would take is a good scale.

Lots of good information on their page. I would love to just nab a Revelation but don't have the money to drop on that right now.

I am going to get my bag out when I get home tonight, open it up, take some measurements, weight it.

As of right now here is what I am thinking…

– length: 80"
– width: 60" at head, half taper to 46" foot
– add back down to a maximum of 3.5" loft or appropriate
– draw cord at the foot box
– buttons going up from the bottom 24" every 6" (or appropriate) to create foot box
– add 4 or 5 small strap tabs on the rest of the quilt, evenly spaced. One of them should be at the very top/at the head/neck area

As far as pricing goes….. keep in mind that you are paying for someone's talent and time… a service! Also, if you don't have specifics and no clear direction and are looking to them to figure out for you… that would fall into a consulting fee.
Expect to pay above$ 100.00 and more. Might be better off buying the thru-hiker kit and sewing it yourself.

You could just buy a Ray Jardin kit for $80 (I think) and make one of his snythetic quilts. Probably no heavier than what you'd end up with modifying your own bag and you'd have the advantages of synthetic. Main disadvantage I'd see would be that synthetic wears out a bit faster but unless you hike a lot more than most you should have no problem for a good couple of years.

Okay, I laid it all out last night and measured it up. It currently weights 48.5 oz. I calculated the area of the existing bag and what I want to turn it into and I think I can cut it down about 10 oz and get a quilt which I just like better after having tried it.

I have all the specifics figured out of what I want, see the diagram. I have also decided I don't want to add any more down, I just want to keep and use most of the down that is in the bag now. The baffles run horizontally so you can easily shake the down into the middle of the bag before cutting the sides. From there some of the down from the area towards the feet would have to be distributed into the upper baffles that are longer towards the top of the quilt. Right now the bag is about 2.5" of loft, I want to shoot for an overall loft of 3-3.5" (approximate, does not have to be precise).

So basically here is what someone would be doing…

– length stays the same at 72", no modification needed
– cut off hood and close cut
– cut off draft tube
– shake down into middle
– cut sides to desired width
– redistribute down in the baffles for a 3 to 3.5" loft
– close cuts on sides
– add draw cord at bottom of foot
– at foot, add 6 buttons, 6 inches apart to create a 30" footbox
– at top of bag, add 3 loops 14" apart
– ship back to me

If anyone would like to give me a quote to do the work above please message me or post it here, either way. Thanks.

If you want to try this yourself there was an article here on turning a mummy bag into a quilt. If I recall it was a fairly straightforeward process. They just marked off the dimensions, shook all the down into that area and sewed along where they wanted the edge to be. Than they trimmed off the excess, and added a few accessories. If you want to try it I think you can buy access to individual articles.
I would like to try one of these but I haven't worked with down yet so I wouldn't be your guy. Homefully someone else here will be interested.

If I do it I know for a fact it will end up looking like a hack job.

I have been thinking that if I don't get any takers, I might do the cutting and redistributing of the down myself at my house, pin it all up (maybe masking tape it if the down is coming out everywhere) and then bring it to a local alterations/seamstress to do some nice neat stitching on it then just work with them on the loops and buttons or velcrow and draw cord stitching.

I just figured there surely is some MYOG person out there looking to make some extra dough and I could ship it off to them instead and get back a finished product.

If I do it I know for a fact it will end up looking like a hack job.

My attitude on that is …. It'll be dark and my eyes will be closed when I'm using it, so I don't worry about the cosmetic factors.

Ty Ty,
Contact Mat at UK Hammocks. He's in England, but does great work and i have used him for several custom bag projects similar to this. Tell him Matt from Oregon sent you. Good luck.

M

NM
M

…I know you like your existing bag, but it might be cheaper to just buy a quilt and sell the bag you have. Tim Marshall's enLIGHTened Equipment is selling quilts ~$200 that fit your 20* spec… add another $20 or $30 for a zero-degree bag. And that is a product you know will be excellent, and I'm guessing would be at least 8 oz less than you'd get to trying to modify your current bag.

If you could sell off your existing bag for ~$100, you'd basically be breaking even over paying someone to modify your bag, and you'd end up with a better, lighter end result. Unless there is something you intrinsically really like about the fabric or color of your current bag that you can't get through a quilt maker, it might be worth considering…

Not trying to tell you what to do, just suggesting that it's worth thinking about. And if I run across or can think of anyone that could do the mod you're looking for, I'll post back. Good luck; I'll be trying out quilting for the first time later this year, and I'm really excited about it.

I have thought about that for sure. Just not sure I could sell my bag for $100 bucks but maybe I ought to put it on ebay and see. If not I am thinking I should just do it myself for free and accept the ugly, but functional result.

FYI the way I tried out quilting for the first time was on a summer, warm weather trip I took one of those cheapy blankets from Wal Mart, the kind that is almost like foam feeling, and cut it to the shape of a quilt. I love not getting tangled up in it, it's more like sleeping at home. The main thing to me is not having to get in and out of it, no zipper to constantly get bunged up, and it does not get tangled when you roll over at night.