FF Sleeping Bag Fabric(s)

I have a FF Vireo with the Endurance UL shell. Has held up to over-spray and wet side walls with no trouble. I don’t use a bivy with it. Really like the material and how it has performed.

On the first half of the CT last summer, constant rain meant that my FF bag (Endurance UL fabric) would be in contact with some condensation-wet tent walls most mornings.  I would worry about that every time, and every time it turned out to be a non-issue.

Maybe I should learn to worry less, LOL.  :^)

I have a Vireo in the Nanosphere fabric.  Outstanding stuff.  I choose it over the Endurance as I’m not fond of how PU coatings limit breathability for something with down insulation.

Thanks for the feedback…..exactly what I was looking for.

Cheers

this was back in 2008 … so give em a call and maybe it no longer applies to the current crop …

Feathered Friends used Pertex Endurance for a number of years on our products, but the last time we had an Endurance garment in the store was 2004. We still have some of the fabric, and use it for bags in our rental fleet.

One of the advantages of Endurance (and especially the newer variant, Quantum Endurance) is light weight. I don’t have exact specs on hand, but I estimate the weight of EQ to be a hair over 1 oz/yd. We have a couple new prototypes made up from EQ in the shop, and they are ridiculously light. Endurance does have pretty good water resistant properties, but we stopped using it for a variety of reasons. Chief among these are breathability and durability. Unlike ePTFE membranes (like eVent), Endurance is a polyurethane coating. This gives it less breathability than eVent. We haven’t done any scientific testing on it, but our staff who have used both fabrics report that Endurance doesn’t breathe as well as eVent. Then again, no laminated/coated WPB fabric does.

I have seen old FF Endurance products taken apart, and one of the interesting effects of age and use is that the coating wears off from the inside. It is impossible to tell from the outside, and since Endurance is a coating rather than a laminate, it doesn’t take on that bubbly appearance and it doesn’t delaminate. The coating just scrapes off eventually, which improves the fabric’s breathability but obviously reduces its water resistance. I would imagine this effect is amplified by the coarseness of synthetic fiber insulation, which is more abrasive than down. This isn’t so much a concern for the products in our rental fleet, since we use the fabric on warm expedition bags that get taken to Denali and Aconcagua once or twice a year. That amount of use on a bag isn’t enough to be of concern, but on a jacket it’s a different story. The second durability issue is that EQ uses such a light face fabric (Quantum, a 15D calendared ripstop nylon) that the abrasion/tear resistance is very low. Again, not a big deal for a sleeping bag, but problematic for a jacket.

If you are looking for a belay jacket made with eVent, you should look at the FF Volant. We make the jacket standard in Epic, but if eVent is what you want we can make you one in that fabric. Heck, we can make any of our products from any of our fabrics. You could even get an Endurance jacket if you wanted.

The combination of synthetic fiber with WPB fabrics is fairly uncommon. TNF used to make synthetic bags with DryLoft, but those were short lived since their price to durability ratio was not very good. Arc’teryx makes Gore-Tex and Windstopper insulated belay jackets that are very nice, but also very expensive. OR also makes a great Windstopper belay jacket (the Chaos) that is more reasonably priced, but is not among the warmer options on the market. From a design standpoint, putting a waterproof shell on a synthetic jacket doesn’t make a ton of sense. The insulation is designed to function (albeit at a heavier and slightly diminished rate) when it is wet, and adding WPB fabrics always results in a more expensive product and usually are heavier, both important customer considerations when making a purchasing decision. FF has noticed that in this current season, the Mammut Stratus belay jacket at $189 has been far more popular than the OR Chaos at $240, and we have never in 4 years sold an Arcteryx Fission SV for its list price of $550 or whatever it goes for.

That was a bit more info than what you asked for, but the bottom line is that Endurance is not as breathable or as durable as eVent.

————

Our NanoSphere fabric hasn’t had enough of a chance to garner sufficient feedback, even though we’ve had it on the market for a year and been testing it for a year previous to that. I guess I can tell you that we haven’t had many complaints about it, but it’s too soon to know how the durability compares (although we have our theories). The light weight and water resistance are clear advantages, but the breathability is not in fact as good as Epic. FF’s experience has been that the advantages are best gained by using it in summer weight sleeping bags and our lightest down jackets. A few of our folks have used Nano jackets on alpine and ice climbs and found it works okay, but not as well as eVent jackets. We have even had a few staff outings where all three fabrics are present on different jackets and we have compared notes on how they work.

Good luck on your search, and please share news if you do find something that fits your needs.

————-

zxcv, to answer your question, the deterioration of the Endurance coating should not affect the loft of the jacket. Eventually you will have tiny bits of the coating floating around inside the jacket getting mixed up with the rest of the down, but this won’t be something you’ll notice with regards to the loft.

I want to make sure the durability issue of Endurance/Endurance Quantum is taken in its proper perspective: the coating is not going to deteriorate to the point of being useless overnight. This is a process that occurs over years of use, and the one example I have seen of this was of a 4-5 year old garment that saw heavy use in the rental fleet and was not cared for in the way you might care for your own gear.

A more important consideration than the durability of the coating is the durability of the face fabric. Pertex EQ is very light and not as resistant to tears, abrasions, and that kind of wear as some other fabrics are.

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/768639/Re_Pertex_Endurance

;)

Thanks for the information Eric……I wonder if the Nano would be more durable in terms of water repellent long term as it appears that from the FF website that the “NanoSphere treatment can be rejuvenated with exposure to heat and we recommend drying your products at a moderate heat level to maximize this effect.” Now Feathered Friends uses the Pertex Endurance UL vice regular Endurance and wonder if it will be more durable than previous versions? Though it is still a PU coating.

with enough usage, anything will wear out

i have a old mammut nanosphere jacket thats been used daily, and its probably no longer water resistant

coatings though tend to delaminate from enough body oils, dampness, etc … which is why they always tell you to wash jackets and keep em clean

thats life

;)

Very true…..thanks Eric