Primaloft Gold questions – Dutchware UP synthetic

[Monte Masterson]

I’m getting ready to make a synthetic quilt and I’m debating between Apex and Primaloft Gold. The Apex looks easy to deal with whereas from what I understand the Primaloft requires quilting every 6″. Does this have to be done in Kero like squares?

The reasons I’m even considering the Primaloft Gold 3.0 oz/sq yd is first of all because the weight is ideal for the quilt I want to make. I have an EE Revelation Apex 50 Long/Wide that comes in around 13.5 oz (with 2.5 oz/sq yd Apex), and a same size 40* with 3.6 oz Apex weighs around 20 oz. I’m shooting for about 17 oz finished weight (10D shell). Secondly from the research I’ve gathered the Primaloft Gold has a little better warmth to weight ratio than Apex. Anyway, if anyone can shed light on the quilting techniques required for Primaloft Gold I’d greatly appreciate.

Also I’m wondering if anybody has used the Dutchware UP synthetic insulation that mimics down in its consistency. https://dutchwaregear.com/product/up-insulation-3-oz/

[Thom]

Would an alpha direct quilt work? Sewn to argon .

thom

[Jerry Adams]

it would weigh less if you used down : )

I’ve pretty much just used apex and sew it around the perimeter

[Monte Masterson]

Yea of course down is warmer per weight but for a light summer quilt I want synthetic for the advantages it provides. Primaloft Gold is also supposed to pack down a lot smaller than Apex. Can’t find much info online about making quilts with Primaloft Gold though. Questoutfitters says you should have chambers no more than 6′ wide when using it.

[YoPrawn]

If you use primiloft gold, you lose the largest advantage given by Apex. Obviously needing to quilt the material more than Apex, which will instantly turn your 3.0 ozy warmth into less than 3.0 ozy warmth.

Apex can also dry faster and is easier to recover from being soaked in water. Not the biggest factor for responsible people, but still an advantage if such a thing should happen.

Primaloft Gold isn’t used much in top-end sleeping systems for a good reason. It just doesn’t work as efficiently for the weight as Apex or other continuous fiber materials.

The ONLY benefit I can see going to Primaloft is that I kind of think it is more consistent of a material, where as Apex can be wildly inconsistent with thickness and foot to foot quality.

I DO think going to Primaloft just because of the weight per yard, is really not the best way to factor your choice. Go by the best material, then go to the best weight you need from there.

Plus, with synthetic insulation, that initial OMG warmth wears off really fast after a few uses and they settle down into a longer lasting material that is a little less warm. When making any sleep system out of Apex or Primaloft, always overshoot the weight by a few percent to get the temp rating you actually want.

Also, I would never recommend making the ability to compress the insulation a big factor. You really shouldn’t be compressing any of this stuff down into a brick. Use a larger backpack if need be and keep the synthetic stuff loser stuffed. It will last a lot longer.

[Monte Masterson]

Yes YoPawn that makes sense. I definitely don’t stuff my Apex 50 quilt very hard because of all I’ve heard about how compressing it really makes the Climasheild degrade faster. I suppose I should just go with 3.6 oz Apex and then use an Argon 49 7D shell instead of Argon 67 to drop an ounce. It’s only $2.50 per yard more. However, if I really thought the Primaloft Gold was noticeably warmer per weight, even after quilting, I’d gladly deal with the extra hassle.

What about mitigating heat loss at box seams with 1″ wide 2.5 oz Apex strips in between? I think I saw that suggestion on Hammock forums. Also in the pics Questoutfitters shows comparing Primaloft to Apex, the packable volume difference is dramatic. 4 yards of each compressed (somewhat) Primaloft Gold 3.0 oz on left and 2.5 oz Apex on right.

 

[YoPrawn]

Where are you seeing tests between Primaloft and Apex compression? I’m sure primaloft can compress more, but much more?

I would also be VERY skeptical of any tests that try to show this, as Apex can have quite wide variations in quality. Some yards have thicker fibers than others. I’ve purchased a lot of Apex in small batches over the years and some batches compress massively better than others for same OZ/Y material.

Any test that doesn’t take into account sample variation, isn’t a good test.

But, that also shows the major drawback of Apex in that you never know which apex you are getting. The stiff stuff or the soft stuff.

Either way, if you do it out of Primaloft, it would be a great experiment! Not many of us doing MYOG quilts or bags with it. Could be advantages none of us have figured out yet.

[Monte Masterson]

Here’s the link to Primaloft Gold on Questoutfitters site with description. Just scroll down a little to see all 3 pics. https://www.questoutfitters.com/insulations.htm#PRIMALOFT

[YoPrawn]

Monte, all that is showing is that Primaloft Gold has less loft than Apex. Primaloft is a bit denser than Apex, I think.

3.6 Apex has loft of 0.9 inches. 3.0 Primaloft, 0.6 inches. More loft difference than weight difference would imply.

 

I will have to say one thing about testing compression, as I actually DID own a sleeping bag made with Primaloft now that I think of it. Not sure if Gold, but it was not anything like apex. It did indeed compress down in size more than anything I have ever seen, but it was also not even close to warm for the rating and the warmth packed out very fast after several trips. So, maybe there is something to it, but I also think that it wouldn’t have been so easy to pack if it was made for the temp rating.

The sleeping bag I had used some sort of double sided tape system to quilt the insulation instead of sewing, which probably helped the warmth to weight ratio and allowed better compression.

[Michael S]

I’ve made quilts from apex and hammocks with integrated bottom insulation with primaloft, and though I like the way primaloft feels, very silky and drapes nicely, it is a pain to sew to a shell. It absolutely compresses better than apex but in a summer weight quilt I’m not sure that makes as much difference. With just basic sewing skills you can put together an apex quilt in just a few hours, absolutely not true with a primaloft quilt.

If you do decide to go with the primaloft I would just quilt the insulation to one of the shells and sew the second shell around the perimeter. This would make the quilting way easier and allow you to strip the scrim material off before closing the quilt up, saving maybe .5 osy. Oh yeah, and use a walking foot and tissue paper strips.

[Mole J]

Agree with Michael S

“If you do decide to go with the primaloft I would just quilt the insulation to one of the shells and sew the second shell around the perimeter. This would make the quilting way easier and allow you to strip the scrim material off before closing the quilt up, saving maybe .5 “

This is how many PL filled garments are made – mainly quilted to lining but not outer, or Vs versa.   And often not 6″ each way, but in 6″ strips.

 

I made a pair of Primaloft/pertex trousers this way.  Inc removing the scrim afterwards.

For a PL quilt  think I’d quilt in strips (i.e. in one direction only) to the inner lining and leave the outer  untouched apart from edge seams.

 

I saw a neat way of preventing insulation snatching on the prongs of a fixed foot – by covering the prongs with a U shaped loop of drinks straw ( the concertina section from a bendable straw)

[James Marco]

Monte, the overall use of Primaloft is likely not your best use of time.
1) It weighs a lot for the warmth.
2) It doesn’t take compression well. It will degrade in loft a lot if you try to compress it. Adding a larger pack means it also increases your entire sleep system weight.
3) It does allow you to experiment with the new materials a lot, though.
4) It simply will not hold up over a hundred uses.
Synthetics do have their place. As far as overall quilting one side, it will buy you very little. You will still compress the material where you sew it on, reducing loft in that area. Both nylon and poly materials have little, next to no, insulation value. It should be possible to quilt on two half thickness of insulation (both the inner and outer shell,) alternating the quilt pattern so it covers the stitching on BOTH sides. Follow? A light bead of some glue, say thinned contact cement or rubber cement, every 12″ or so, should hold the two layers in place without increasing the weight too much. It will do a better job of quilting the synthetics by stopping any cold air leakage through the seams. You still pay for the loss of loft, but without most of the infiltration losses. Roughly equivalent to hand stitching through half the insulation.
Another methode is adding a 1/8″ bead on the shell material, just catching the surface few layers of the primaloft and stitching back out, on one side. (Fold both layers over and JUST catch the primaloft along the fold.) This might be as effective. Again, a slight reduction of loft.

[Monte Masterson]

Thank you guys very much for the replies. Greatly appreciated. I don’t mind complexity and a challenge but I’m just not sure the Primaloft Gold is worth all the extra effort. If I thought the performance would be markedly better than Apex I’d give it a go. Probably not the case though, so no use taking on something difficult for little gain, and potentially costly if it turns out to be a failure.

Think I’ll do an Apex quilt using the inside out method. It’ll pretty much be a copy of my EE Revelation Apex 50 Long/Wide but with 3.6 oz Climashield instead of 2.5 oz. Maybe go with the Dutchware Argon 49 7D for a shell and that will bring the total weight to around 18 oz with poncho head slot added.

I’ve been skeptical of treated hydrophobic down, but if all the claims about it are even somewhat true perhaps it’s worth considering. Should a quilt with 9 oz down need baffles or is sewn through good enough (or better)? I can get different types of treated down all coming in 3 oz bags: 1) 800 duck down $23  2) 850 goose down $35  3) 950 goose down $45. Also a 7D shell would have the weight coming in at around 15 oz with zip footbox (Revelation style). Probably a little warmer than with Apex 3.6 oz too.

 

[Roger Caffin]

Should a quilt with 9 oz down need baffles or is sewn through good enough (or better)?
Very biased personal opinion:
Sewn-thru stuff is a cheap way of trying to emulate decent baffled down gear. The lower price might appeal to tourists.
It might be OK for a vest with something over it, but emphatically NOT for sleeping gear, especially (but not only) for snow gear.
ALL my MYOG down gear has baffles.

Cheers

[Jerry Adams]

If you do sewn through baffles with a larger spacing on one side, you get all the benefits of sewn through (easier, and easy to repair if a seam rips) and all the benefits of baffles (no cold spots).

This is just a one foot square test piece.

I’ve made several quilts and vests and has worked good.

To my knowledge no one else has tried this but I wouldn’t consider anything else.

[Michael S]

I think if you’re shooting for a 50 degree quilt sewn through is fine, below that probably not so much, and a sewn through karo step down quilt is dead simple to make, and fill, and move down around if you need. Jerry how much over stuff do you find that you need to get those nice tall half circles?

[Justin W]

Why not do a thin layer of the Apex and then stuff some of the P.L.G. on top (or bottom) of it?  As long as the face/lining fabrics are tight together, the combo of the pressure of the top fabric over the Apex and the nature of the Apex being very “grabby” and providing plenty of friction, most of the loose(r) insulation will stay more in place than it would otherwise, especially for a night of sleeping.  You may need to reshift some of it at some point (while not sleeping), but wouldn’t take long or be difficult to do.

Have you seen Snow Tire Socks?  Works on the principle of increased surface area increases friction which increases better grip and handling for a vehicle driving in snow, and to lesser extent ice, (these are literally just a fabric covering with hairy fibers that goes over a regular rubber tire).  Sort of a similar principle with the above.

Anyways, this is what I would do in your shoes.  Kind of “best of both worlds”.  (Except I would probably combine Apex with down–the ultimate sacrilege..).

[BC Bob]

I’ve made two down quilts.  I wouldn’t make one without baffles.  The sewn-through lines will lose a lot of heat IMO.  Baffles certainly make the sewing more difficult, but I just took my time with it.  It’s just one line of sewing at a time.

The first quilt is the one I use on most trips.  I like the baffle design, but if doing it again I would skip the diagonals to make it easier.

In addition to the initial specs, I added this note later….

I would not use the 0.5 noseeum again. Too stretchy and flimsy. And it was too difficult to peel the tape off. Materials for next quilt are Argon 67 for the shell (dutchwaregear.com) and his .67 noseeum precut baffles.

The design for the second one wasn’t as good. The channels are too wide I think and the down flows too easily from one end to the other. But it was much easier to sew and if I just give it a shake before going to bed, I can distribute the down OK.  The choice on materials worked well.

I suspect narrower channels would work better, or a combination of length-wise channels in the upper and cross-channels in the lower.

 

[Monte Masterson]

Thanks for the replies. I have thought about doing a hybrid Justin. Appreciate the ideas. And nice quilts Bob.

I ended up making a down quilt instead of synthetic mainly because of packing volume and also for warmth to weight ratio. I was a little intimidated to do a baffled quilt though and I’m sure Apex would have been much quicker and easier. No doubt sewn through would have been much simpler as well.

My first quilt yet it went pretty decent really. It’s an EE Revelation 40 copy but with horizontal chambers/baffles instead of vertical upper and horizontal foot like the way EE does them. Chambers are 5.75 inches wide and baffle height is 3/4″. I’m so glad I had the walking foot on hand or else it would have been a failure. Zippered foot box (24″) and 3/32″ shockcord drawstring head and foot. Also 3/4″ watchband fasteners for elastic pad straps. Kitty clips on 4 corners. Laid flat dimensions 78″ long, 56″ wide top half and 44″ wide foot.

I used Argon 67 and 11 oz hydro duck down. Final weight 18.5 oz. I can see the down is going to shift a lot though. I might make another quilt but with Argon 49 and 850 goose down, and more importantly with short vertical baffles running perpendicular to the horizontal ones to keep the down in place better. I know it’s not professional looking however it is my first quilt attempt. Advice on my next quilt and critique on this one would be very welcomed. Thank you.

[BC Bob]

Monte, that looks really nice!  Good to see you added baffles. I’m sure it will be a great quilt for many trips.  I had a taller baffle height on my lighter quilt (1.5″).  Not sure if that’s good or bad. It will be interesting to see what temps your comfortable with.  After a few trips, you’ll have a good idea what features you’d like in your next quilt.

[Justin W]

Nice work Monte.

[Justin W]

A thought occurred to me about the idea of combining Apex with down and Apex with Primaloft Gold insulation.

Electrical static charge may affect how these interact.  I know that lower surface energy, more hydrophobic plastics and human made rubbers like polyester/PET, PU, PE, PP, silicone, etc tend to attract electrons to their surface when in contact with other materials (especially being rubbed/moved back and forth) and thus build up a negative charge.

Meanwhile, more natural, hydrophilic materials like hair, silk, leather, wool, the non hydrophilic and semi natural exception–glass, and the harder to classify dry human skin, when in contact with other materials (especially when rubbed/moved back and forth) tend to build up a positive charge from loss of electrons.

Opposite charges attract. It’s how a duster works, the duster becomes negatively charged and attracts the positively charged dust. Or when you rub a rubber balloon on your head and your hair and the balloon attract each other.

This can have implications for different combos of material within the same fabric sleeve.  A non treated down, most likely would become fairly positively charged while a silicone treated polyester (Apex) would become fairly negatively charged.  If so, besides the friction factor mentioned earlier, the opposite charges of the materials will tend to attract them to each other, potentially also helping the down to stay more in place.

Conversely, Apex and Primaloft Gold would both develop a fairly negative charge and thus tend to repel each other, making it work less better as a combo?

Obviously this would apply most during cold and dry weather, and less so during humid weather.  I’m quite curious about this now. Particularly about whether or not untreated down will tend to “static cling” to Apex and vice versa.  Combining them in one piece could save weight and sewing time/complexity, when it comes to cold weather camping where you want the down on the bottom and a synthetic above to deal more with moisture via condensation.  Basically cutting out the middle man of putting an extra synthetic quilt on top of a down quilt or bag–you would save weight in fabrics both from not using liner/face fabrics, but also no extra baffle material and thread.

(I primarily hike/backpack in cool to cold conditions, sometimes in somewhat more extreme cold like single digits and negative single digits F., hence I have a high degree of interest in such systems to deal with moisture more effectively).

[Sam Farrington]

Monte,  you probably made the right choice.  For years all types of synthetics dominated my bags due to an almost paranoid fear of sleeping gear getting wet.  Tried the shingle sewing that NorthFace used, and was about to sew up a shell with baffles and fill it with Thinsulate Lite Loft, which did have a better loft/weight ratio.  Problem was, nothing seemed to work, even at moderately cold temps there was shivering.

Then BPL published a couple reviews of the first Montbell spiral down bags, weighing 20 oz and spec’d at around 30 F, and bought one for around $320.  With no added insulation from clothing, it was toasty, and with a Polarguard Delta top and bottom from BPL (they used to sell gear!) it could go at least 10-15 F lower.  And when stored in the mesh bag between trips, including in the car, neither the loft nor the warmth suffered.  This was important, because the down was compressed just enough to fill the shell, and any permanent loss of loft would have been readily apparent.  And the bag has been used now for over a couple decades with no loss of warmth or loft.

There was an issue raised on BPL about how I could get away without washing the bag.  Most of my treks are at cool latitudes at night, though recall a few times when the bag was unzipped part way while sleeping.  At such times I sleep with just a poly Tee and underwear, and no stink develops.  So am reluctant to wash the bag, because have seen down bedding lose its loft after repeated washings, and have never felt a need to spray on deodorizers.

A year or two ago, there was a thread on BPL from a merchant about astonishing improvements in warmth to weight ratios in synthetics; but have not seen any confirmation on BPL.   It was when I began using better tents that the paranoia about wet down faded, so there is no reason to change now.  The ducks have it.  Quack!

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