Sorting down for your project

[Marko M]

So I came into possession of some unsorted goose down.   It was a great deal compared to buying ready to use down online, to be exact like 15$ for the whole lot of 4kg.  The quality was good, large down clusters and no mold etc, only thing it was unsorted , down and feathers.  No way to do this manually without going insane so tried to come up with a way to sort mechanically at home.  Used bathroom as a work area for containment and some materials at home.  Just bought plastic flexible duct tubing.  Other than that , old bathroom vent and few ventilation plastic tubes.  Few tries and adjustments.  Happy with what i got in the end.  Used in my winter down bag. From 4kgs I got 0.7kg down, with like almost no feathers maybe 1% or less.  Visibly lost down with waste as some clusters were well attached to feathers. Anyways, if you got some old duvets or pillows laying around, maybe can use this to sort them out.  After sorting used a UV light (aka quartz or ozone light) to expose down via see through boxes to disinfect it before use.  So far so good, works well.

Here is video for parts of process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id9EWFOrRiU&t=3s

Starting material

 

Waste

Finished product

Cluster sizes

[R]

This is fantastic.  Thanks for sharing!

(Also, your YouTube channel, the Chronicles of Georgia – I was in Tbilisi last summer and had no idea – ARGH!)

[Mike B]

This is pretty awesome.
Maybe you said in the video and I missed it, do you have an idea on what fill power of down you were left with after you separated out all the feathers?

[Marko M]

Glad you find it useful.  Chronicles of Georgia, yes, absolutely awesome, very impressive on a hill and got this massive soviet giant monument feel to it.  Maybe next time you there

[Marko M]

@highwarlok yes, it is about 800-850, I actually tried to measure after.  I was getting better sizes with second design, got some small clusters with the first design, but it averaged somewhere in the 800+ range

[Author]

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