I’ve been making my own gear for a few years now, and most of that is just messing around with experimental designs. I’ve ordered quite a few cuts of Climashield Apex in various weights from 2.5-5 ozy.
One thing that always stands out, is how wildly inconsistent this insulation is. You can order a 4 yard length of 2.5 and some areas will be about the weight of 1 ozy, while other areas are over 4 ozy. When making a jacket or pants or a sleeping bag, it’s literally impossible to make it with a consistent material thickness across the whole item. Just. Not. Possible.
If you do try to make it all even, it takes a ridiculous amount of wasted insulation to get cuts that are decent.
So, my question is, why do they sell Apex in such a terrible and difficult state to work with? Do they not consider this to be a viable product for commercial uses?
Enlightened Equipment uses it in many products. I wonder if they somehow mitigate the problems of Apex thickness varying so much from section to section?
It’s sort of frustrating because the core engineering of Apex is brilliant. The wavy continuous fibers are great at what they do, but the way they make that into sheets of Apex leaves huge areas of overlap and even areas where it has been pulled super thin. There really has to be a better way to construct Apex.
