EE now offering 7d

Yeah, I saw that. For 7D/7D (outside/inside) it will save about an ounce over a 10D/10D shell. They use the finer 10D fabric inside, anyway. Of course, you are free to custom order whatever you like.

The 7D robic/nylon is, perhaps, a nicer inside cloth. However, I am not sure it is heavy enough for the outer. I have a 20F, 10D/10D Revelation in a long/wide configuration and it shows about a half ounce difference to go with 7D per layer, or, an ounce overall. With the larger insulation and other factors for jackets/vests, I am sure the difference will be greater percentage wise. Anyway, I have a 10D jacket that is plenty rugged enough for stops & camp. The only problem I have discovered is it picks up spark holes from having a fire very easily. My cuffs and front have several tape patches. I believe the vest might be a bit better option for sitting around at camp.

I see they have a note up about the 7D not being totally down proof. I wonder if producing quilts with this will hurt Tim’s reputation for quality?

I noticed the UL wind shirt they have, also. At just over 2oz, it could likely be coated with mineral spirits and caulk to make this a nice <4oz(WP) rain coat. Thinking about this…

I’ve been using EE’s new 7D fabric for a few months, so I’ll offer a few comments.

Durability
IMO, Quilts are a perfect application for the lightest nylons. If you take reasonable care of your gear, there’s no reason a 7D should ever wear out. It should only get damaged through abuse. I’ve put >100 nights on two other 7-8D fabrics, and now I have ~60 nights on EE’s 7D and it still looks brand new. In fairness, of these 60 nights only 10 are trail nights where I was stuffing/unstuffing the quilt nightly, and the other 50 are sleeping in my van. Still, unless you want to drag your quilt around outside by the campfire, I think the 7D fabrics will hold up plenty fine. Easily longer than a cuben tent.

Feel / Downproofness
Light fabrics are typically “calendared”, which means rolling it between two hot rollers to slightly melt the fabric. This improves downproofness at the expense of breathability, so it is a trade off. Overly calendared fabrics feel like plastic, whereas non-calendared ones don’t keep the down in. I think the new 7D strikes a good balance here, it seems to be calendared enough to keep the down in, while avoiding a plastic feel. It feels like a pretty standard sleeping bag fabric to me….very similar to Western Mountaineerings MF fabrics. So it doesn’t have the plastic feel of previous light nylons like the old Momentum 55 from Thru-Hiker, but it’s much better than keeping the down in than Zpacks old EightD/TenD/Ruta Locura NoBull.

It’s also a good looking fabric. It has a small “micro” ripstop grid that looks fancier/more techy than EE’s 10D. Probably just aesthetics, but it’s a cool looking bit of gear.

As EE mentions, the downproofness is lower than their other fabric options. I’ve personally only lost one feather ever, so it seems plenty good to me. I’ve had a Zpacks quilt that shed 10 feathers every time I took it out. So it’s much better than some of the 7-10D fabrics that hit the market a few years ago. With that said, mine has 950 FP fill, so people opting for 850 down (which has more feathers) might find they lose a bit more, as will people that really like to compress their quilts, since this is usually when a feather starts to protrude. So I recommend going with 950 down and not being a maniac with quilt compression.

Weight
EE’s website lists a 7D, 40F Revelation in Reg/Reg sizing at 12.56oz with 950 FP down, which is what I have. Mine actually weighs less at 12.03oz, which I think is amazing. Compared to their 10D fabric, I’ve saved about 1.5oz for $19, which is good.

Thanks, Dan. Some real world testing is nice.

Unfortunately, living here in the NE I have a problem with dew, mountain mist(fog/rain,) evening rains and general condensation. While my bag is usually fine, it is also subject to the higher relative humidity associated with these events. At a guess, one out of two nights has some moisture. Soo, I avoid the higher FP down since it fares a bit worse with moisture.

Nice to hear about the overall down retention, though. I have lost 4-5 feathers (which is no big loss being feathers, not down plumes) this past year and before. It sounds like there is no difference in downproofness. But I also stuff my quilt, longjohns, sleeping socks,spare hiking socks, hoodlum, and down jacket into an ~8L package in my pack. I use a GG Murmur, usually, for up to two weeks and space is at a premium at the start of every two week trip. The newer 7D looks like it might work better for that than the 10D, being somewhat more flexible.

The overall weight will vary a bit between identical items. I would worry a bit if my quilt was under spec, though. A half ounce *could* be in the fill. One of the few places a slight overage is acceptable.

I thought it was common that EE overquotes the weight and underquotes the temp ratings on their website? Ie they are a conservative?

Dan; how much measured loft do you have in your 7D EE quilt?

How does that 7D compare to say RBTR Membrane 0.66? I’m just wondering where we are at for the MYOG crowd. The membrane taffeta is really nice stuff. Quite strong, feels good, excellent DWR really. I’ve only built a synthetic quilt with it. Mum did the seaming for me, she didn’t have any problems, though she’s sewn thousands of ballet costumes over the years using ridiculous fabrics as you might imagine.

My bag of treated 950 down is still sitting there waiting to be used…might be time I finally got around to doing an MYOG down quilt… so many things always to do. Sigh.

Adam, I believe that they are usually pretty good with weight and temp ratings. For example, the 20F Revelation Tim sells was officially tested at between 21F and 22F. Of course, he had to supply a hoodlum, since they do not normally do quilts. They require a hood or head cover for the tests. EE also stresses good pads and head gear.

Anyway, I am pleased they finally dropped the weight of a decent fabric. This is almost the same discussion we had with 10D fabrics maybe ten years ago when they were just being introduced. i got an older 10D down sweater that still works fine. It does leak down slightly more than other fabrics, through. It seems the manufacturers learned a lot and applied it to the 7D. Good for them!

I had a custom 7D quilt made by Hammock Gear many years ago and its still going strong! Great fabric and so soft. Love it! Anything that EE makes with it will be awesome.

Adam: I can’t be much help with those questions. I haven’t measured the loft of it. I normally don’t, because I find it more insightful just to compare the fill specs between quilts. I trust that EE is putting in as much down as they claim, and then I use my prior experience to decide how much down I want for specific conditions.

Similarly, I don’t look at temp ratings that closely because they’re so subjective and no matter what someone is going to think it’s too cold.

So I compare warmth by looking at the theoretical loft volume (e.g. 10oz of 950FP down = 9500 cubic inches of fill) and also considering the area that is spread over, if the two quilts I’m comparing differ substantially in length or width.

I haven’t used RSBTR’s Membrane .66 but that stuff looks more similar to EE’s 10D fabric, in that both of these options are 10D, taffeta (not ripstop) and ~0.65oz. The new 7D is lighter (.5oz) and strong enough. You gotta use that bag of down!

.50oz? Nice. Way to go, Tim. Would be interested to get my hands on some. I’ve never seen a 7d go sub .60oz that still had all the typical coatings that we’re accustomed to. May explain why this fabric isn’t quite as downproof(although sounds like it’s still really, really good)

RSBTR is supposedly working on a 5d nylon currently. It’s a great time to be a MOYG’er.

@dandydan “So I recommend going with 950 down and not being a maniac with quilt compression.”

Could you tell me more about this? Should the quilt be only used with the provided bag and avoid compression bags?

Cheers,

Olivier

Olivier: Any down quilt/sleeping bag – even very high end ones – is going to contain some feathers in addition to the down clusters simply because it’s very hard to sort out all the feathers, particularly the very light ones. There are really puffy, almost down-like feathers, but the difference is that feathers have a somewhat stiff central quill, whereas down clusters are all puff with no central quill.

So a high end bag is ~90-95% down and 5-10% light feathers typically. These feathers have quills, but they aren’t going to stab through your bag/quilt on their own. What happens typically is that when users compress the down, sometimes a feather quill will hit the shell fabric at the right angle and start to poke through, which you’ll notice the next time you unpack it. Very soft feathers are more likely to deflect, but the odd stiffer feather might poke through, depending on the toughness of the fabric. So the important factors here are (1) if you apply a lot of compression, (2) if you have a fabric that is less resistant to being punctured or (3) if the bag contains a lot of stiff feathers.

A feather poking through isn’t a big deal – especially if you deal with it the right way. It’s almost always better to pull the feather back inside the quilt by grabbing it from the other side, rather than pulling it out, because pulling it through typically makes the hole bigger. In most cases there isn’t actually a hole, rather it punctures between the threads, but you can still sorta make a hole if yank the rest of it through.

The best research I’ve read shows that compressing down a lot for storage isn’t a big deal if it’s not stored like that long term, but if you don’t need your sleeping bag to be super small, then it’s slightly better for the down if you don’t crank it right down, and it’s also going to reduce feathers poking through a bit. So you shouldn’t need a compression sack, which tend to be heavy anyways. I prefer to use silnylon roll top style sacks (my favorite is Sea to Summit UltraSil 8L for 20F quilts), because they also allow you to compress your sleeping quilt quite a bit as you can squish it and then roll the top, and they have the advantages of being lighter, more waterproof (b/c of roll top) and they make better pillow cases with less straps and buckles on the sides.

Than you Dan, so much info :)

Well, it is a matter of hiking style, I guess. For my bag/quilt, I use an eVent Sea to Summit small. I stuff the non-compressible items in (socks, long johns,) the Hoodlum, then the jacket and quilt. Then I cram the straps down to about 9″ long, so it fits into the Murmur. This saves an extra 300ci in the pack. It *just* fits into the bottom.

I used to use a larger pack that weighed around 22oz. Adding an extra 3oz for the compression bag lets me carry a smaller volume, lighter 14oz Murmur. Or, I pay 3oz to save 8oz, overall. Volume vs weight is the trade off in the TOTAL pack. Everything I carry is small, but it doesn’t always work out to be the lightest weight. Rather, I usually pick stuff that is well balanced for it’s utility. Example: small Impulse lights, waterproof, computer driven (no longer made,) and long lasting (~8hr on 2016 coin cells) weighs about 3/4oz, and has auto-shutoff. Light enough to carry two of them rather than one and a spare set of batteries. Not as light as some, but good backup for two weeks out with no resupply. And so on…around 23-25 pounds for 2weeks out unsupported.

I wonder if Enlightened Equipment will use the 7D fabric as a baffle material? If the 0.5 oz/sq-yd weight is correct, that would make it lighter than almost all other baffle materials, and could yield some additional weight savings. It’s neat they rolled it out for their synthetic jacket and their Recon bivy as well.

I would like to see an uncoated or at least non-calendared version of these lighter shell fabrics for use with synthetics. I don’t think Climashield Apex needs a down-proof fabric.

I’m about to pull the trigger on an EE torrid pullover w/ 20D outer & 7D inner. Does anybody have a review on their 7D as an inner apparel material?

I want the 20D for windproof-ness in the SE USA, & I sweat a lot, so I don’t put much faith in breathability anyway.  I’m in the habit of removing my jacket when I start to sweat, cause I’d rather be chilly in short sleeves & gloves than keeping my jacket on, and hoping for evaporation.

I’m also considering the combination of Torrid pullover w/ 10D outer, plus an EE windshirt, which may weigh 1.5 ounces more than the 20D Torrid by itself, but again, If I got no faith in breathability then the windshirt over a Torrid doesn’t seem much better than my rain shell over the Torrid, and I’m already carrying the shell.

Louis, I don’t know if you saw Darwin onthetrail review of 7D Torrid inner/outer….