Does washing restore loft in clumpy down?

Take the tennis balls out while the garments are still “damp” – the physical contact breaks brittle down fibers. Down fibers get brittle as they dry out and are more subject to physical damage. I’ve observed this firsthand with microscope studies. Broken fibers = less loft.

My experience has been that washing my quilt, the down gets distributed oddly, seems like there are more clumps (thick and thin spots).  I take it out in the sunlight and re-distribute the down for a more even coverage: gently swiping it with my palm and shaking the down.  Once it is even, i work on drying  it with tennis balls on a supper low setting and then thing tend to fluff up.  That is what works for me.

Uh oh, I probably did too much time with tennis balls.

Ryan, that would be really interesting to see more about tennis balls damaging down.  That is commonly done.  If people are damaging their down gear it wouldn’t be good :)

I washed (with nikwax) a cheap down jacket (the REI one with the 600 down) and then dried on air fluff with wool dryer balls.  It is really puffy now.  I’ve always been afraid to wash a quilt and mine aren’t that bad yet.

do wool dryer balls weigh about the same as tennis balls?

maybe heavier balls would do more damage

I got these plastic balls with spikes all over them but I’ve never used them.  I go them for free.  I think it was from Grainger or someone in a kit that included the soap.  Maybe they came with the nikwax direct down wash.

I don’t know what they weight.  But we run all of our dryer loads with wool dryer balls.  I don’t know why.

it very effectively removes clumps to use dryer balls in your dryer

My experience has been that washing my quilt, the down gets distributed oddly, seems like there are more clumps (thick and thin spots).

Yes, I have had the exact same experience. After drying, I need to spend a LOT of time redistributing the down. But after that, the loft is restored.

I washed my Eddie Bauer First Ascent 800 fill light down jacket with NikWax Down Wash.

Immediately after I washed in NikWax Down DWR treatment B/C that jacket (and a WM mummy and some Nature Hike down pants) had no DWR treated down in them.

WhenI dried them I added 2 special wighted “tennis” balls and a very clean sneaker to break up clumps of down and now all those items are very lofty.

BUT,,, I still had that collar like yours that was, er, “flaccid”. I had some loose down from another project so carefully used a stitch ripper and unstitched ONE collar chamber and filled it with extra down using a coat hanger with tape wrapped several layers around one end to help push the down in. I then sewed that chamber up and rep[eaed with the other two chambers. THEN comes the task of evenly distributing the new down through the chambers. Be patient and hold one end of a clump while pulling the other end. Then yer collar will stand up properly.

Wool dryer balls are lighter, absorb moisture out of the clothing making for faster dry times, and aren’t as destructive due to their softer density. I prefer them over tennis balls. I use 8 of them.

“Wool dryer balls”? I’ll look for them.  Thanks