[pct-l] A different procedure for adding down to sleeping bags (long)

[mardav at charter.net (Marion Davison)]

We bought inexpensive down bags, wholesale, about ten years ago, and had
used them for 50 or so nights a year since.  They were getting kind of
wimpy, especially over the middle of us.

A few months back I posted a query about how to go about adding down to
sleeping bags.  Everyone sent me to Howie's "how to make a down quilt"
site.  We considered his procedure but weren't wild about the notion of
having an environment full of down aloft.  We thought about doing
something different, tried it, and it worked.  The trick is to 
temporarily alter the properties of the down so that it will not float 
in air.  The idea resulted from our experience washing down filled 
jackets and bags, which we have done many times.

Here is a step by step description of what we did.

Equipment needed:
a small strainer with a screen mesh bottom (dollar store)
a gram scale
a 10 gallon tub
several small plastic containers (butter tub)
big hair clips/safety pins
a large plastic container (ours was about 12 x 8 inch, 4 inches deep)
a piece of plastic pipe, 1 1/4 inch diameter, about 3 inches long, 
smooth edges.
seam ripper
calculator

We bought down from thru-hiker.com.  It came in thin plastic bags.  We 
added one bag of down to each sleeping bag.  Herein follows the
direction for one sleeping bag.

We filled the 10 gallon tub with about 4 gallons of water.  He "kneaded"
the down into the water, a small amount at a time, until it was
saturated.  There was virtually no waste (virtually nothing floating
about the room). To prepare the sleeping bag before opening the seam, 
we shook the down away from the side seam as much as
possible by holding the bag up, seam up, and shaking vigorously.  I
opened up the side seams of 4 compartments with a seam ripper (the
baffle sections go all the way across the bags) and clipped them shut
with big hair clips.  I opened the seams just big enough to insert the
piece of pipe.  It would act as an entry port to insert the wet down.

We weighed the large plastic container on the gram scale so we would
know what it weighed empty.  We used the strainer to catch the down as 
we poured off the water, and put the very wet down in the plastic 
container.  We poured off all the excess water, then weighed the down on 
the scale.  We subtracted the weight of the container to determine the 
weight of the saturated down.  We divided that by four.  We then divided 
the down between the four small containers, one for each compartment we 
were adding to, using the scale to make each amount equal.

I put the plastic pipe in the end of one compartment and held the bag, 
and he stuffed the wet down into the compartment.  You can take a blob 
larger than the pipe and it sticks together so well that it slides into 
the pipe as a unit.

Again, we had no down floating around the room.  I closed that 
compartment with a hair clip and we went on to do the same to the next 
one.   When we were done we hung the bag out to dry.  Today he sewed the 
compartments shut.

When washing down filled items, air dry thoroughly, and then tumble 
cold.  This was high grade down, we didn't even have to tumble them.  We 
just gave it a shake, and it distributed.

llamalady